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THE SENATE 
OF THE UNITED STATES 



BY HENRY CABOT LODGE 

THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

THE DEMOCRACY OF THE CONSTITU- 
TION, AKD OTHER E8SATS 

EABLT MEMORIES 

THE STORT OP THE REVOLUTION 

A FRONTIER TOWN, AND OTHER ESSATS 

A FIGHTING FRIGATE, AND OTHER ES- 
SATS AND ADDRESSES 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



THE SENATE 
OF THE UNITED STATES 

AND OTHER ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
HISTORICAL AND LITERARY 



BY 

HENRY CABOT LODGE 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1 921 






COPYEIGHT, 1921, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



m\ II 1921 

(0)CU6i4679 



TO THE 

NOBLE MEMORY 

OF 

AUGUSTUS PEABODY GARDNER. 

STATESMAN IN THE YEARS OF PEACE; 

SOLDIER IN THE TEARS OF WAR WITH 
SPAIN AND GERMANY; 

HE GAVE HIS LIFE TO HIS COUNTRY 
JANUARY 14, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Senate of the United States 1 

New Lamps for Old 32 

A Great Library 43 

Value of the Classics 58 

Familiar Quotations 92 

Theodore Roosevelt 113 

Prospero's Island 159 

After the Victory 181 

The Pilgrims of Plymouth 195 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES ' 

On the thirtieth day of May, 1913, Mr. Bryan as 
Secretary of State made proclamation that the requi- 
site number of States had ratified the amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States providing that 
henceforth United States Senators should be elected 
by direct popular vote and not by the legislatures of 
the different States as established by the Constitution 
of 1787, ; This amendment, strictly speaking, is only 
/'a change in the mechanism of election and does not 
'' either increase or diminish the powers or essential 
attributes of the Senate, although it will undoubtedly 
have ultimately a more or less marked effect upon the 
quality and character of the membership of that body. 
It is, none the less, a memorable amendment because, 
while it is the seventeenth which has been adopted 
since the Constitution went into operation, it is the 
( first which in any way touches or affects the Senate 
of the United States. 

W^ith the single exception of the House of Lords, 
the United States Senate is the oldest upper or second 
chamber in any great national legislature now in exist- 
ence. Under the provisions of the Constitution 
framed in 1787 the Senate met for the first time on 
the fourth day of March, 1789. The quorum required 

'Reprinted, with additions, from the Political Quarterly, Oxford, 
1914. 

1 



2 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

by the Constitution was not obtained until the 6th of 
April, when the Senate was organized by the election 
of John Langdon of New Hampshire as President pro 
teinpore and by the appointment of a Secretary and 
other subordinate ofl&cers.' From that day to this the 
Senate has never been, legally speaking, reorganized. 
It has been in continuous and organized existence for 
one hundred and thirty-two years because, two-thirds 
of the Senate being always in office, there never has 
been such a thing as a Senate requiring reorganization, 
as is the case with each newly elected House. When, 
at intervals of four years, a new President comes into 
office, the first act at twelve o'clock noon on that day 
is for the outgoing Vice-President or for the President 
pro tempore of the Senate to administer the oath to the 
new Vice-President and hand him the gavel, the sym- 
bol of the presiding officer in a body then and there 
ready to' transact business. There is no break in the 
existence of the Senate, and before the President elect 
can be inaugurated or the members elect of the House 
of Representatives can meet and choose a Speaker, 
the Senate of the United States has transferred the 
authority from one presiding officer to another, and 
goes forward with its organization unchanged and in 
full possession of all the qualifications necessary to the 
performance of its duties. There may be no House of 
Representatives, but merely an unorganized body of 
members elect; there may be no President duly 
installed in office, but there is always the organized 
Senate of the United States. ;This fact, universally 

"I 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 3 

known and yet generally wholly unremarked, is not 
without an important significance^ which will be 
explained later, fl allude to it here merely to show 
that any constitutional change affecting the Senate, 
no matter how slight, and even when confined to the 
mechanism of election, has much meaning if we reflect 
that it is the first which has occurred in one hundred 
and thirty-two years. It is significant also because it 
happens to be almost coincident with certain vital 
changes already effected and which seem to be pre- 
cursors of even more fundamental alterations in the 
House of Lords; the one upper chamber which is older, 
far older of course, than the Senate of the United 
States. ^ 

It will not be amiss, therefore, at this particular 
time, which has witnessed the first constitutional 
change affecting the Senate of the United States, and in 
view of the proposed reform or re-constitution of the 
House of Lords, to consider briefly the construction of 
the Senate, the principles upon which it was based, the 
purposes for which it was established and, in a general 
way, its history as an integral part of the Government 
of the United States since 1789. The Senate it may 
be premised is a remarkable body in its origin, in the 
powers with which it was invested by the framers of 
the Constitution, and in the use which it has made of 
these powers. We cannot, however, understand the 
Senate, the purpose of its makers or the powers which 
it possesses, without a full realization of the manner in 
which it was created and of the character of its creators. 



4 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

[When the delegates from the various States gathered 
at Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of fram- 
ing a new and better general government for the Union 
of States, it must never be forgotten, if we would under- 
stand all v/hich followed, that these delegates repre- 
sented States and not people. Following the example 
of the Contnientai Congress and of the imbecile Con- 
federation, which can hardly be said to have succeeded 
it, for it never had any genuine vitality, the vote of 
the Constitutional Convention was by States and not 
by individual membership. Virginia, Massachusetts, 
and Pennsylvania each had one vote, and so did the 
small States of Delaware and New Hampshire. /Alex- 
ander Hamilton personally signed the Constitution, 
but New York did not because his two associates from 
that State were opposed to it and therefore, as a 
majority pf the delegation, they controlled the vote of 
tlie State. ■ 

The impossibility of securing an effective central 
government when that government was obliged to 
depend upon the States as such, both for its revenues 
and the enforcement of its laws, had been demon- 
strated by painful experience under the Continental 
Congress and the Confederation which followed it. 
Dire necessity alone had forced upon the thirteen 
States the attempt to establish a better and stronger 
central government, one which should act upon the 
people directly and not be left helpless and ineffective 
at the mercy of the States. Hence the Convention 
which met at Philadelphia in May, 1787. But it was 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 5 

only dire necessity which brought these delegates 
together. Local feeling and local jealousies were still 
predominant. The States entered upon the work of 
making a new Constitution with great reluctance, and 
determined to confine the powers of the central govern- 
ment, which the harsh realities of disorder, confusion 
and national bankruptcy had ^extorted from them, 
within the narrowest bounds. '■ The sentiment in the 
larger States was generally favorable to the idea of a 
new Constitution, but the smaller States, which were 
in the majority when the vote was by States, regarded 
all changes with profound suspicion. t^They feared, and 
not wholly without reason, that if too much power was 
given to the central government, acting directly upon 
the people and deriving its power from the people at 
large, three or four of the largest States would be able 
practically to control the government of the Union.JJ 
This apparently irreconcilable difference of opinion 
came very near wrecking the efforts of the Convention 
of 1787, which contained only a few men who, like 
Washington and Hamilton in the phrase of that day, 
"thought continentally." 

It is not necessary to trace the long struggle between 
these opposing forces which ended in the most famous 
compromise of the Constitution of which the Senate 
was the vital element and which finally enable.d the 
Convention to bring its work to a successful conclu- 
sion. It is sufficient here to point out that as the Con- 
stitution was necessarily made by the States alone, 
they yielded with the utmost reluctance to the grants 



6 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

of power to the people of the United States as a whole, 
and sought in every way to protect the rights of the 
several States against invasion by the National author- 
ity. The States, it must be remembered, as they then 
stood were all sovereign States. Each one possessed all 
the rights and attributes of sovereignty, and the Con- 
stitution could only be made by surrendering to the 
general government a portion of these sovereign 
powersJ It was conceded that the House of Repre- 
sentatives must be chosen on the basis of population. 
There was a protracted contest over the powers to be 
granted to the Executive and especially over the 
method by which the Chief Executive should be 
selected, the States Rights Party endeavoring to keep 
the Executive within the control of the States. Finally, 
it was arranged that the Executive should be chosen 
by electoral colleges, one for each State, these colleges 
having a membership equal to the membership of the 
several States in both Houses of Congress. Theoreti- 
cally each elector was to vote for the man whom he 
believed to be best fitted for the office of President, 
and a majority of the electors in all the colleges voting 
by States determined the result. In practise, however, 
the system thus devised by the framers of the Consti- 
tution became a dead letter, and the vote of each State 
for President was determined by the popular majority 
cast in that State for a group of electors who were all 
pledged beforehand to vote for the same person. This 
arrangement made the Executive the choice of the 
people at large in each State. But he was not neces- 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 7 

sarily the choice of a majority of all the people of the 
country, because the people in voting for electors voted 
by States. The President is chosen by a majority of 
the electors, who may not, and often do not, represent 
a majority of the people of the entire country, so that 
the final choice of the Chief Executive still remains as 
an enduring manifestation of the power of the States 
when the Constitution was framed. 

By these provisions for the House and the Executive 
the Senate, |he upper House, was left as the one place 
where the Spates could find complete protection for 
the sovereign rights which they felt were being sacri- 
gced in order to obtain an efficient central government J 
(i In the Senate accordingly the States endeavored to 
secure every possible power which would protect them 
and their rights. / They even tried to give to the Senate 
the power to select judges and ambassadors, and 
although they failed in this and in other similar direc- 
tions, they nevertheless conferred upon the Senate 
powers which, it is safe to say, have never been else- 
where accumulated in a single upper chamber. ( They 
ordained that each State should have two Senators, 
without reference to population, thus securing equality 
of representation among the States. They then pro- 
vided in Article V of the Constitution that "no State 
without its consent should be deprived of its equal 
suffrage m the Senate.'^^In the same article they wisely 
made amendment to tne Constitution difficult by pro- 
viding that an amendment must receive a vote of two- 
thirds of both Houses before submission to the States 



8 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

aiid, this vote being obtained, the proposed amend- 
ment could not become a part of the Constitution 
unless ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of 
the States. But uhe equal suffrage of the States in the 
Senate cannot be changed except by the assent of every 
State. In other words, the equal representation of the 
States cannot be modified m any way unless the whole 
Constitution is set aside. / This clause, it will be noted, 
is the only provision of the Constitution which requires 
the assent of every State for amendment or change. 
Having made the Senate in this way as immovable in 
its representation as possible, and having provided 
that its members should be chosen by the legislatures 
of the States, thus securing it, as they believed, from 
the sudden changes incident to popular voting, they 
proceeded so far as they could to invest it with the most 
important of the sovereign powers which they them- 
selves possessed. 

They gave to the Senate, which was simply one 
branch of the legislature, not only legislative but execu- 
tive and judicial povv^ers. There is only one limitation 
upon the legislative power of the Senate. Bills to raise 
revenue must originate in the House of Representa- 
tives, but the Senate can propose or concur with 
amendments as on other bills. This unlimited power 
of amendment has made the power of originating bills 
to raise revenue reserved to the House of compara- 
tively little moment. In 1883 the Senate struck out all 
after the enacting clause of the Tariff Bill and sent over 
to the House their own bill which was adopted by the 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 9 

House. Ill 1894 the Senate changed fundamentally 
the Tariff Bill of that year wliich had come from the 
House, and the House accepted the bill as amended 
by the Senate without any alteration. In 1909 the 
Tariff Bill, when returned from the Senate, carried 
eight hundred and forty-seven amendments. These 
instances will show that even on Revenue Bills, which 
must originate in the House, the powers of the Senate 
have been practically unlimited. In practise, the 
Senate, although possessing the power to originate 
bills appropriating money, has ceded to the House this 
right in the case of the great Appropriation Bills. The 
Senate still originates bills containing an appropria- 
tion of money for a single object, but on the great 
Supply Bills it is content with its right of unlimited 
amendment, which it always exercises without re- 
straint. In all other respects, so far as legislation is 
concerned the Senate is on an absolute equality with 
the House and during the one hundred and thirty-two 
years of its existence has originated more important 
legislation than the popular branch. 

The Senate shares with the President the executive 
functions. No treaty can be made without the assent 
of two-thirds of the Senate. The President can enter 
upon any negotiations that he pleases, but no treaty 
which he may make can become the supreme law of 
the land without the consent of the Senate. The 
President can nominate, but without the advice and 
consent of the Senate he cannot appoint "Ambassadors, 
other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the 



10 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United 
States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise 
provided for, and which shall be established by law." 
As provided in the same section of the Constitution, 
the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such 
inferior officers, as they may think proper, in the Presi- 
dent alone, in the Courts of Law, or the Heads of 
Departments. Thus the Senate has a controlling voice 
in the appointment of all important officers, and this 
right of control cannot be taken from them in the case 
of even inferior officers except by their own consent. 

The judicial functions of the Senate consist in its 
being the court before which all impeachments must 
be tried. They can even try the President of the 
United States upon articles presented by the House, 
as was done in one instance, and in that event the Chief 
Justice presides over their deliberations, but in all other 
cases of impeachment the Senate selects its own pre- 
siding officer. 

To Congress is given the power to declare war. To 
the President and the Senate alone is given the power 
to make a treaty of peace, as is the case with all other 
treaties. Thus it will be observed that the assent of 
the Senate is necessary both to peace and war. War 
can be declared without the assent of the Executive, 
and peace can be made without the assent of the 
House, but neither war nor peace can be made without 
the assent of the Senate. 

The makers of the Constitution also gave to the 
Senate the longst tenure conceded to any of the politi- 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 11 

cal branches of the government — six years — and this 
term enabled the Convention to arrange the election 
of Senators in such a way that only one-third of the 
Senate goes out at each biennial national election. ' It 
is perhaps well to repeat in this connection that the 
inevitable result of such an arrangement was that two- 
thirds of the Senators were always in organized ex::t 
ence^j and therefore the Senate has never required 
reorganization since the beginning of the government. 
The manner in which, on a change of the Chief Execu- 
tive, the Presidency of the Senate passes first without 
a break from one hand to another, the ceremony 
amounting to no more than the presiding ofl&cer calling 
some one else to the chair, is a symbol not only of the 
permanency with which the framers of the Constitu- 
tion wished to invest the Senate but of the great 
powers which they garnered up in that body, composed 
according to their conceptions not of representatives of 
popular constituencies but of the ambassadors of 
sovereign States. ~ 

(The amendment , changing the method of electing 
Senators which has been adopted, as i have said, 
affects in no way the powers, the tenure of office, or the 
permanency of existence conferred upon the Senate by 
the makers of the Constitution. They provided that 
^Senators should be elected by the legislatures because 
they_wishe3^in every possible manner to impress upon 
the office of Senator the State characteristic and to 
make it as clear as possible that a Senator represented 
a State and not a constituency. 



12 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

They also believed that legislatures would choose 
better men to fill the senatorial office than could be 
expected from a popular vote. Despite some flagrant 
cases where corrupt means have been used in legisla- 
tures to secure the election of a Senator and some other 
cases where political factions have prevented elections 
by the legislatures, the anticipations of the framers of 
the Constitution have been fulfilled. Those senatorial 
elections which have been open to reprobation and 
'.vhich have necessarily attracted great attention are 
ait a small fraction in the mass of senatorial elections 
;-fec!ed by legislatures which have passed unnoticed 
cud -vithout criticism because there was no occasion for 
either. ^ It is also true that legislatures, as a rule, 
jtlth ugh not always, have had a strong sense of the 
mr . rtance of retaining in the public service men of 
lisiinguished ability, high character, and long experi- 
ence. ;, This inclination on the part of many legislatures 
h.ar resulted, throughout the history of the United 
Str .es since 1789, in the continued presence in the 
Se; ate of a body of Senators, made up from different 
p Si. ties, who were retained in office by the legislatures 
of their States. These Senators had terms of service 
ranging from twelve to more than thirty years. -They 
formed a group of men who understood thoroughly the 
mechanism of government and administration, who 
had a large knowledge of all departments as well as of 
the government policy, both foreign and domestic, 
r' These Senators of long service, no matter how much 
fhey might be divided on purely political issues, in 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 13 

dealing with that wide range of questions which are 
not necessarily connected with party were all animated 
with an earnest desire that the Government of the 
United States should be properly carried on. They 
have constituted a most important element in our past 
history and have exercised a very great influence in 
forming the traditions and guiding the operations of 
the Goveniment of the United States, i If at times 
these men of long service in the Senat€f'*have erred on 
the side of too much conservatism, they have been on 
the whole of great value to the United States by giving 
strength and continuity to her administration and to 
her policies in every direction. It was generally pre- 
dicted that under the system of popular elections this 
group of long-sei^ice Senators, which has hitherto 
played so large a part in our political life, would pass 
awa:'. Now that the new system has gone into opera- 
ua, while it is still too soon to declare just how it will 
work, the indications are that it is by no means certain 
that the old group of experienced Senators may not in 
the main be retained by the popular will which seems 
so far by no means carried away by an unbridled desire 
for constant and unreasoning change. On the other 
hand it seems well-nigh certain that a chief result of the 
new system, speaking broadly, will be, in the long run, 
to add very greatly to the expense and labor of a 
senatorial election, which will thus become something 
much more serious to encounter than it was before, and 
will, therefore, not only shut out a good many men 
who might be available for a legislative choice, but 



14 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

will force those who are actually in the Senate to 
choose between attending to their duties at Washington 
and passing a large part of their time, when they ought 
to be in the Senate, in defeating the operations of 
rivals who take advantage of the necessary absence of 
the Senator in office to undermine him with the con- 
stituency while he, if he does his duty, is compelled to 
be elsewhere. Thus it will be seen that while the new 
amendment is very likely to affect in some respects the 
character and the elections of the membership of 
the Senate, it has in no wise diminished or impaired or 
indeed in any way modified the powers of the body 
itself. I reiterate this statement because there has been 
much misunderstanding on the subject, and there has 
been a failure in many quarters to comprehend the 
fundamiental truth that the change in the manner of 
electing Senators, however important in its extra- 
constitutional results, is still only a change in the 
machinery which brings the Senate into existence. 

The dominant motive in constituting an upper 
chamber clothed with such powers as have just been 
described was to be found in the determination of the 
States to have one essential part of the new govern- 
ment wholly in the hands of the States as political 
entities. But there was also another, larger motive 
which pervaded the provisions creating the Senate as 
it did many other clauses of the Constitution and 
was concerned with the general character of the new 
government which was to be established. Democ- 
racy is to-day so generally triumphant throughout 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 15 

the world of Western civilization that it is not easy 
to conceive the distrust which was felt in regard to it 
in the eighteenth century, even among the people of 
the American Colonies, who were probably the most 
democratic and the freest people then extant in the 
world. /The makers of the Constitution, who were 
nearly all of English or of Scotch descent, had been 
bred in the belief which had become ingrained in the 
English-speaking people during many years of conflict, 
that the power of the sovereign ought to be limited.^ 
They were all familiar with the history of the long 
struggle which had resulted in placing limitations upon 
the power of the Crown. The men who met at Phila- 
delphia understood thoroughly that in the new 
government which they were about to establish 
sovereignty would be transferred from the Crown to 
the people. They were under no misapprehension 
whatever as to the fact that they were founding a pop- 
ular government; that is, that they were establishing 
a democracy. But this change in the character of the 
sovereignty in no wise altered their belief that all 
sovereignty should be exercised under limitations, 
(xhey knew, of course, that in the last resort the popu- 
lar will would control and ought to control absolutely, 
but upon the democracy for which they were forming 
a government they wished to put limitations. They 
desired to give ample space for deliberation, and for 
this reason they sought for checks and balances, gave 
the federal judges a life tenure, raised the courts above 
the dusty atmosphere of the hustings, and strove to 



// 



16 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

make the operation of the popular will depend for its 
final expression upon the cahn second thought of the 
community and not be governed by the passions of the 
moment. It was with this purpose in view that they 
established their judicial system, a very remarkable 
achievement, which it is not necessary to consider here, 
but Ihey Btill further tried to secure limitations by 
making amendment to the Constitution difficult, by 
separating the judicial executive and legislative powers 
into three coordinate and independent branches, and 
by the peculiar power and authority with which they 
invested the Senate of the United States.) The govern- 
ment which they thus created can best t)e defined as a 
limited democracy and nothing describes it so well as 
these words of Lord Acton: 

"American independence was the beginning of a new 
era, not merely as a revival of the Revolution, but because 
no other revolution ever proceeded from so slight a cause 
or was ever conducted with so much moderation. The 
European Monarchies supported it. The greatest states- 
man in England averred that it was just. It established 
a pure democracy, but it was democracy in its highest 
; perfection, armed and vigilant, less against aristocracy and 
monarchy than against its ovm weakness and excess. Whilst 
England was admired for the safeguards with which, in the 
course of many centuries, it had fortified liberty- ag; inst 
the power of the crown, America appeared still more worthy 
of admiration for the safeguards which, in the deliberations 
of a single memorable year, it had set up against the power 
of its own sovereign people. It resembled no other known 
democracy, for it respected freedom, authority and law. 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 17 

It resembled no other constitution, for it was contained 
in half a dozen intelligible articles. Ancient Europe opened 
its mind to two new ideas — that revolution with very little 
provocation may be just and that democracy in very large 
dimensions may be safe.'" 

In the government thus described by I-ord Acton •ho 
Senate has played a large part in carrying out tlie 
intentions of its framers and in maintaining the limita- 
tions which had been so carefully established.,, /Except 
on some rare occasions the Senate has been the con- 
servative part of the legislative branch of the govern- 
ment. The closure and other drastic rules for prevent- 
ing delay and compelling action which it has been 
found necessary to adopt and apply in the House of 
Representatives have never except in a most restricted 
form been admitted in the Senate. Debate in the 
Senate has remained practically unlimited, and despite 
the impatience which unrestricted debate often cre- 
ates, there can be no doubt that in the long run it has 
been most important and indeed very essential to free 
and democratic government to have one body where 
every great question could be fully and deliberately 
discussed. Undoubtedly there are evils in unlimited 
debate, but experience shows that these evils are far 
outweighed by the benefit of having one body in the 
government where debate cannot be shut off arbitrarily 
at the will of a partizan majority' The Senate, I 
believe, has never failed to act in any case of impor- 
tance where a majority of the body really and genu- 
inely desired to have action, and the full opportunity 



18 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

for deliberation and discussion, characteristic of the 
Senate, has prevented much rash legislation born of 
the passion of an election struggle, and has perfected 
still more that which ultimately found its way to the 
statute books. ; • % - j' 

To trace thfe history of the Senate would be to write 
the history of the United States, which wouM require 
volumes and is, of course, impossible here. Through- 
out the history of the United States it may be said 
generally that the Senate has played a very large and 
determining part. It has at all times possessed great 
influence, not only in legislation, but in determining 
executive appointments and settling executive poli- 
cies. There have been periods when the Senate has 
been the dominant force in the Government of the 
United States and has concentrated upon itself the 
attention of the people. During the decade between 
1840 and 1850, for example, it is not too much to say 
that the fate of the country was largely settled in the 
Senate. That was the period when Clay, Webster, and 
Calhoun, who had all been presidential candidates, 
were members of the Senate. The Presidents of that 
period were unimportant, inferior in ability and in 
weight of influence before the country, when compared 
with the great Senators. Tyler, Polk and Filmore were 
not men who could lead public opinion in rivalry with 
Clay and Webster and Calhoun. After the deaths of 
these three distinguished Senators, which all occurred 
about the same time, the same condition continued in 
large measure, and the country looked for leadership to 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 19 

Douglas, Seward, and Suinner during the decade pre- 
ceding the war much more than to a president like 
Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan, of whom one was 
insignificant and the other pitifully weak in character. 
With the exception of Sumner, all the Senators who 
have just been mentioned were the true candidates and 
leaders of their respective parties, but thej'' never 
attained to the presidency, being set aside, except of 
course in the case of Seward, for inferior but more 
available men. It is a curious fact and not withoui^-^ 
significance that until the present year (1920-1921) no 
man has ever gone from the Senate, where the party 
chiefs have been sd largely assembled, to the presi- 
dency. V There have been presidents who had served 
in the Senate at some period in their careers, but none 
before 1921 who has ever passed from the Senate to 
the White House. This is no doubt owing to the fact 
that Senators have played so conspicuous a part in 
framing the policies and legislation of the country that 
judicious politicians in looking for candidates were 
afraid to take men who were so identified with one side 
or the other of the questions upon which the country 
was divided. The enthusiasm which they excited and 
their unquestioned ability were more than offset by the 
hostilities they had inevitably aroused in contests 
which had fixed the attention of the entire country. 
After the death of Lincoln the Senate represented one 
side in the conflict which arose with President Johnson, 
and Congress, led by the Senate, was successful in that 



20 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

struggle, although ^he impeachment of the President 
fortunately failed. 

These periods which I have mentioned, although 
covering many years, do not accurately represent the 
general position of the Senate, because the Senate as a 
rule has been in harmony with the administration of 
the time. Its power has been very great, but Senate 
and President generally have acted together, the 
Senate exercising a due influence on the course of the 
executive. At various periods it has been charged that 
the Senate was usurping power from the other branches 
of the government, and sometimes this charge has been 
urged and agitated with great vehemence. Looking 
back dispassionately over the century, it is not easy to" 
see just where the Senate has usurped power. In the 
matter of appropriations, for example, it has yielded 
voluntarily in giving the House the right to originate 
the great Supply Bills. The truth is that the powers 
conferred upon the Senate by the framers of the Con- 
stitution were so great that there has been no occasion 
for that body to usurp the powers of other branches. 
I'he senatorial powers have at times been exercised 
with more vigor than at others, but it is not apparent 
that the Senate has ever invaded the province of other 
departments, although there have been instances where 
it has sought to push too far some of its executive 
powers in questions of appointments. If any branch 
of the government has grown at the expense of the 
other departments, it is the executive, and this growth 
of executive power has been greatly stimulated by the 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 21 

reform movements of the last few years, which have 
all aimed at weakening if not at breaking down the 
legislative and judicial branches, and thus bringing the 
government as nearly as possible to one which consists 
of the executive and the voters, the simplest and most 
rudimentary form of human government which history 
can show. 

Where the question of the powers and the constitu- 
tion of an upper chamber is under consideration, as it 
is to-day in England, the history of the Senate of the 
United States, the powers granted to it, and the foun- 
dations upon which it was built up, seem to have a real 
and instructive valuej In the general agitation which 
has gone on in the United States during the last ten 
years the object to be attained seems to be a return to 
the direct democracy familiar to the cities of Greece 
and to the Roman Republic. Not only do those who 
carry on this agitation seek to weaken and break down 
the legislative and judicial branches of the government, 
but they desire to quicken as far as possible the action 
of government in all directions. To rapidity of action 
in carrying out what is supposed at the moment to 
be the popular will, the presence of a second chamber 
is clearly an obstacle, and within recent years this 
point of atta^ has begun to make its appearance in 
our politics. ( In one or two States suggestions have 
been made that the upper chamber should be abolished 
and that we ought to return to the government of a 
single chamber corresponding to the Convention of the 
French Revolution. There can be no question that this 



22 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

would greatly accelerate legislative action and remove 
one of the important restrictions which the framers of 
the Constitution believed to be essential in order to 
avoid the peril of action springing from the passion of 
the moment and deprive the people of that opportu- 
nity for deliberation and second thought which they 
deemed vital if we were to be ruled by the popular will 
in its best sense. One or two of the colonies, notably 
Pennsylvania under the leadership of Franklin prior to 
1789, had undertaken to establish governments with 
only one chamber. These attempts had been failures, 
and the makers of the Constitution, without any doubt 
or hesitation, adopted the bicameral system, which had 
been in use in all the colonies before the Revolution. 
They had no question that two chambers were essen- 
tial to orderly government and well-considered legisla- 
tion. They also felt that if there were to be two cham- 
bers, the upper chamber should be vested with large 
powers, and, for the particular reasons which I have 
given as well as on this account, they conferred upon 
the Senate, as I have pointed out, powers of unusual 
extent. The weakness of upper chambers in modem 
constitutional governments has largely arisen from the 
fact that so far as they were elected they were chosen 
by the same constituencies as those which elected the 
lower house. They therefore possessed no independent 
basis of representation and were moved by the same 
impulses as the lower branch. One great secret of the 
strength and influence of the Senate has been the fact 
that it did not represent the same constituencies as the 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 23 

House of Representatives. The Senate represented 
States and not a majority of voters set off in arbitrary 
districts. The history of the United States, speaking 
broadly, seems to vindicate the wisdom of a strong 
upper chamber, and the first step toward the attain- 
ment of that object is to make the upper chamber rep- 
resent some political entity as different as possible 
from the ordinary constituency of a congressional or 
parliamentary district. The members of the upper 
house should also have a longer term than is accorded 
to the lower or popular branch. The question of the 
powers to be conferred upon an upper chamber is one 
which must be settled according to the best judgment 
of those who frame the law or constitution which gives 
it existence; but, speaking broadly, and in view of the 
experience of the United States, it may be laid down as 
a general principle that the upper house ought to have 
substantially the same powers as the lower branch. 

The limited democracy established by the framers 
of the Constitution and so highly praised by Lord 
Acton is now an object of attack in the United States. 
How far this attack will succeed it is impossible to 
say, but it is certain that this effort to remove the 
limitations of the Constitution is an attempt to return 
to methods of government of a more primitive kind and 
which have been familiar to the world for more than 
two thousand years. It may be that it is well to aban- 
don the principle of representation, which on a large 
scale we owe to England — the independence of the 
judiciary, which has been regarded as one of the tri- 



24 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

umphs of the English-speaking race, and all those 
limitations upon the sovereign democracy devised by 
the framers of the Constitution of the United States, 
which have been thought hitherto to be a triumph of 
a high and intelligent civilization, and return to 
simpler forms which have failed in the past. What- 
ever else may happen, it is certain that when this is 
done we shall be going backward and not forward. 
We shall be returning from a highly developed 
organism to a lower, simpler, and more primitive one. 
In the progress of this movement toward direct and 
unlimited democracy the Senate of the United States 
has not escaped. Although its powers have been in no 
wise diminished, the change in the mechanism of its 
election will draw attention to the basis of representa- 
tion in the Senate, and may well lead to other changes, 
which will be fundamental in their character and which 
will not only alter the machinery but revolutionize the 
principles that have hitherto made the Senate of the 
United States one of the most powerful and, as many 
believe, one of the most useful and effective legislative 
chambers to be found in the history of the world. 

This article, written nearly eight years ago, was pub- 
lished in an English quarterly in 1914. Intended for 
English readers, it naturally contains much which 
theoretically at least is familiar to Americans, not so 
familiar, however, as to suffer by repetition. The pur- 
pose of the article as originally written was to point 
out what seemed to me at that time the real if not 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 25 

very obvious tendency to modify the carefully limited 
democracy of the Constitution in such a way as to 
bring it measurably nearer to the simpler, more rudi- 
mentary and more dangerous form of an autocracy 
resting on a plebiscite, with a suppression of all the 
intervening legislative provisions which were the 
essence of the system for a limited democracy devised 
by the framers of the Constitution. 

Since I called attention to these dangerous tenden- 
cies, as I considered them, events have moved under 
the pressure of a wai' of unparalleled magnitude with 
a rapidity which could not possibly have been esti- 
mated from any normal conditions. The war itself 
made a rajiid and immediate, although temporaiy, 
i^rowth in executive power both necessary and inevi- 
table. This manifestation of the development of ex- 
ecutive power was, however, in its nature acute, and 
was certain to decline and retreat v/ithin its proper 
boundaries, as was the case after the Civil War when 
war itself ceased. Side by side, however, with what 
may be called the normal expansion of the war power 
during war, there went on another movement which 
contained within itself permanent qualities affecting 
the very fabric of government, and for the disappear- 
ance of which with the end of actual war there was 
no assurance. 

It is not necessary here to enter upon the many insid- 
ious forms assumed by this tendency to break down 
permanently the constitutional limitations of our gov- 
ernment under cover of war necessities. Fortunately, 



26 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

I am inclined to think, not only for the true compre- 
hension of the issues at stake but for the country itself 
a direct attempt was made to break once for all per- 
haps the most important of the powers of the Senate 
in regard to one of the greatest if not the greatest of 
its constitutional functions. As I have pointed out, 
the States in their determination to keep their sover- 
eignty unimpaired so far as was possible in the con- 
struction of the new government reserved to them- 
selves an absolute veto upon any attempt by the execu- 
tive to make treaties without their assent. Under the 
Constitution no treaty could be made binding upon the 
United States which had not received the assent of 
two-thirds of the Senate. It would seem on the face of 
it as if nothing could be more explicit or less susceptible 
of evasion than this provision, and yet an attempt had 
been made, no doubt with the highest and best of 
motives, some years before the war with Germany, 
seriously to diminish and limit this very obvious and 
vital Senate power. 

In 1905 Mr. Hay, with the approval of President 
Roosevelt, brought before the Senate seven general 
arbitration treaties. This was an effort to advance the 
cause of international arbitration by the formation of 
a series of treaties under which certain classes of inter- 
national differences or disputes should go before an 
arbitral tribunal without the necessity of a separate 
agreement to take them before such a tribunal in each 
case. The general purpose was one with which not 
only the Senate but all friends of arbitration were in 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 27 

thorough accord. But Mr. Hay had so framed these 
general treaties that any specific treaty of arbitration 
made under them would be not only negotiated but 
ratified and put in operation without any action on the 
part of the Senate. An arbitration treaty which pro- 
vides for the terms, subject and conditions of the ques- 
tion to be arbitrated had, of course, up to this time al- 
ways been submitted to the Senate like every other 
treaty. IMr. Hay's seven treaties provided smiply that 
certain classes of subjects should be arbitrated without 
further negotiation, and thus did away with 
the necessity of a treaty to settle the terms and con- 
ditions necessary in each arbitration. The Senate 
was not of opinion that this power which was un- 
doubtedly theirs ought to be taken from them in this 
way by a general treaty which in no respect affected 
the terms of arbitration to be agreed to in each par- 
ticular case. The Senate therefore amended the word 
by which the subordinate treaties were described, 
changing it from "agreement" to "treaty," which of 
course brought these instruments at once within the 
Constitution and made the advice and consent of the 
Senate necessary. There would probably have been no 
practical effect from this change, but a question of 
constitutional principle was involved and the Presi- 
dent and Mr. Hay stood firmly by their position and 
in favor of transferring to the Executive all powers 
relating to the secondary treaties made under the seven 
general instruments. The Senate having adopted the 
amendments, the treaties were not sent back by the 



28 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

President for ratification to the different signatory 
powers and therefore failed. 

When Mr. Root became Secretary of State he took 
up the question of these arbitration treaties which Mr. 
Hay had declined to carry through with the Senate 
amendments, and examined tlie question with great 
thoroughness. He came to the conclusion that legally 
and constitutionally the position of the Senate was 
sound and convinced President Roosevelt of the cor- 
rectness of his view. Accepting therefore the position 
of the Senate, he proceeded in 1907 to make the thirty 
and more general arbitration treaties which bear his 
name and which are still upon the law of the land. 

When the constitutional power of the Senate in 
regard to treaties was again called in question it was 
under very different and much more serious conditions. 
In his work upon "Congressional Government," pub- 
lished in 1900, page 233, President Wilson said: "The 
President really has no voice at aU in the conclusions 
of the Senate with reference to his diplomatic trans- 
actions. . . . His only power of compelling compli- 
ance on the part of the Senate lies in his initiative in 
negotiation, which affords him a chance to get the 
country into such scrapes, so pledged in the viev/ of 
the world to certain courses of action, that the Senate 
hesitates to bring about the appearance of dishonor 
which would follow its refusal to ratify the rash prom- 
ises or to support the indiscreet threats of the Depart- 
ment of State." It will be observed that President 
Wilson does not attempt to deny or even diminish the 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 29 

power of the Senate in regard to the ratification of 
treaties. If more than one-third of the Senate are 
opposed to a treaty he acknowledges that such a treaty 
cannot be accepted by the United States. Then with 
most interesting and engaging frankness he states that 
the only way in which this power of the Senate can be 
overcome or divided is by the Executive, with his 
power of initiating negotiations, involving the country 
in such "scrapes" or "so pledging it in the view of the 
world" that its constitutional powers cannot be exer- 
cised. Without in any way discussing the ethical 
aspect of this method of procedure there can be no 
doubt that it might be made very effective in the hands 
of a President who was thus willing either to break or 
evade the Constitution. In any event this is precisely 
the question, constitutionally speaking, which was 
forced upon the Senate when the treaty of Versailles, 
carrying with it the covenant of the League of Nations, 
was laid before them. 
^Whatever objections there may have been to the 
treaty of peace with Germany as signed at Versailles 
on the 28th of June, 1919, it was in the highest degree 
improbable that any Senate would refuse to ratify a 
treaty of peace concerned with peace alone. But the 
question presented by the covenant of the League of 
Nations, which was in reality wholly distinct 
from a treaty of peace and involved nothing less 
than an alliance for an indefinite period among 
more than thirty nations, was a wholly different 
one. Mr. Wilson had followed the line suggested in his 



30 THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

''Congressional Government." With the principal treaty 
he had interwoven a second and more important treaty, 
to which ho felt there would be opposition, in such a 
manner as to make it extremely difficult for the Senate 
to exercise its constitutional power and reject that one 
of the two treaties to which it had profound objection. 
I am not concerned here with the great questions 
involved in the covenant of the League of Nations, but 
solely with the constitutional question raised by Mr. 
Wilson in his effort to secure by what was in effect a 
breach of the Constitution the ratification of an instru- 
ment to which the Senate was opposed. On the deci- 
sion of this question was staked not merely the consti- 
tutional authority of the Senate but the existence of 
the constitutional government and the limited democ- 
racy established by the framers of the Constitution. 
That the powers engaged with us in the war against 
Germany or the world of western civilization generally 
should understand the constitutioHal question involved 
in the contest over the League of Nations and so vital 
to the United States was not to be expected. Now, 
however, after Mr. Wilson's effort to force the treaty 
through the Senate against the will of the Senate has 
failed both in the Senate and before the people it seems 
not amiss to call attention to the question at stake. 
That question was nothing more nor less than whether 
constitutional government in the United States which 
has been successfully maintained for one hundred and 
thirty years should be broken down by a single well 
directed attack and replaced by the old and simple 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 31 

method of the autocracy and the plebiscite, which 
would mean not only the loss of free government but a 
distinct retrogression to a government system of a 
lower type and more purely tyrannical in operation and 
results. It is sufficient here to say that this attempt 
to change thel constitution failed. , 



NEW LAMPS FOR OLDi 

Just a year ago, speaking as president of the Har- 
vard alumni, I quoted Lowell's famous definition of a 
university as a place "where nothing useful is taught." 
I fear that this pregnant sentence would now be gen- 
erally regarded as little more than an amusing paradox 
and that even here in Cambridge its wit and humor 
and deep underlying truth are somewhat dimmed. So 
I quote it once more because I would fain say a word 
in behalf of the "useless" things which were once the 
main if not the sole object of all university education 
but which have now been pushed aside and which in 
these enlightened, days are treated with kindly con- 
tempt as little better than the harmless pleasures of 
lovers of futile learning. 

More and more rigidly has the stern practical test 
of utility been applied to all university teaching. 
More and more has the question been asked in regard 
to every branch of learning, "What use will this be to 
:■. student when he or she goes out into the world and 
'3 called upon to deal with the business of life?" The 
drst test and the simplest was how far the education of 
.'.. university would aid its graduates in earning a living ; 
n other words, the money test was applied. This, so 

^ Address delivered at Radcliffe College Commencement, June 
23, 1915. 

32 



NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 33 

far as it approached the precincts of the university at 
all, had hitherto been considered in connection with the 
work of the professional schools alone, but now the uni- 
versity has gone to the point of trying at least to teach 
its students directly how to make money in purely 
money-making pursuits with no trace of general or 
even of professional learning about them. This repre- 
sents the extreme to which the utilitarian theory of the 
highest education has proceeded. But long before this 
point was reached the sciences had not only entered 
upon the field in old times consecrated to the classics, 
as they are familiarly described, but had taken the 
lion's share of the domain. That there was good 
reason for some change every one must admit, nor can 
it be denied that the ancient and long-continued 
monopoly of Greek and Latin in the higher education 
had become, in a measure certainly, an anachronism. 
But it seems as if the pendulum had now swung too 
far in the new direction. 

Men cannot live by bread alone nor, in the highest 
sense, can education be restricted to methods of money 
getting or be of the finest quality and temper if the 
"humanities," as they used to be pleasantly called, are 
wholly thrust aside and neglected. It was not by acci- 
dent that the literature and learning of Rome and 
Greece bore uncontested sway for centuries in all the 
universities, old and new, of Western civilization. Con- 
sider for a moment the facts upon which the classical 
education so long rested in unquestioned supremacy. 
There was a strong and brilliant movement as early as 



34 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 

the twelfth century to scatter the darkness which had 
settled down upon Europe after the downfall of the 
Roman Empire and in which men had been groping 
about for eight hundred years. This movement did 
not then culminate, but it opened the way for what has 
ever since been known as the Renaissance of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries, the point at which 
modem history is said to begin. That period is not 
inaptly named a rebirth, for men felt indeed as if they 
had been born again when they drew up from the dark- 
ness and released from the prison of the palimpsests the 
manuscripts which brought them face to face with the 
history, the art, the literature, the thought and the 
civilization of Greece and Rome. But there was much 
more than this. That was the time when the human 
mind suddenly broke forth into light and freedom. 
Men began to question everything and knowledge 
started on a new career. They sought to establish the 
place of the earth in the universe and set out to dis- 
cover the size, the shape and the motion of the planet 
upon which they lived. The doors of science were flung 
open and inquiry entered in. The material conditions 
of life were once more considered after long neglect. 
The drainage, the water supply, the baths of ancient 
Rome began to suggest that it was, perhaps, unwise 
to discard them, as Greek art had been discarded, 
merely because they were the work of pagans, and the 
idea dawned that plague-ridden cities and filthy habits 
were not essential to eternal well-being, and that the 



NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 35 

salvation of the soul was not incompatible with whole- 
some bodies and with public health. 

All these things and many others were but outward 
manifestations of the liberation of the human intellect 
which made that era forever memorable, and which 
was felt in a thousand ways. The world identified this 
liberation of the mind with the revival of learning, as it 
was called, which was in effect the discovery and reha- 
bilitation of Greek and Roman literature and art. How 
far this bringing the classics again to light, accom- 
panied by the resurrection of long-buried statues, was 
the cause of the great intellectual movement of the 
Renaissance, and how far it was merely one result of 
the movement itself, we need not now inquire. That 
the revival of the classics was coincident with the 
Renaissance and had an enormous influence upon the 
thought of the time is beyond doubt. To classical 
learning, therefore, men felt themselves so deeply 
indebted that it took possession of all the seats of the 
higher education and was in fact the higher education 
itself. The classical writers became the touchstone 
by which men were tested not only intellectually 
but socially. The education of a gentleman meant 
that a man had at least been brought into the 
presence of the classics, even if he remembered 
nothing of the pages which had passed before his eyes. 
A man ignorant of the "humanities," the literce 
humaniores, no matter what his other accomplish- 
ments, was considered hopelessly uneducated. The 
classics in fact became a fetish which led to many 



36 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 

absurdities among their devotees, like that which has 
required successive generations of English boys to write 
Latin verses. The verses thus composed in meters 
painfully acquired and quickly forgotten could never 
be otherwise than more or less bad, and the exercise 
was of no more value than teaching them to manufac- 
ture poems in Choctaw would have been. Whereas, if 
they had been taught by ear to speak Latin, even in the 
medieval form, it would have been of value always and 
everywhere. 

But in gettmg rid of absurdities let us beware of 
losing the substance. It is not well wholly to forget the 
vast debt which mankind owes to the recovery of the 
literature and art of Greece and Rome. It was by no 
means without reason that a classical was known and 
is still known as a liberal education. The mind of the 
Renaissance was liberalized by the study of the classics 
and what was true then is true now, for the classical 
education liberalizes in the only right way by making 
its beneficiaries respect genuine learning and knowledge 
of any sort wherever found, and no matter how far 
removed it may be from their own. There is no form 
of education which teaches this respect for the learning 
and acquirements of other men in any direction, as 
far as miy experience goes, so surely as the classical. 

It is also to be remembered that the knowledge of 
Greek and Latin is necessary not only in the learned 
professions but in at least two great subjects which 
I believe are admitted within the pale of the scientific 
domain — philology and anthropology. Neither of these 



NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 37 

is strictly utilitarian nor in any way pecuniarily profit- 
able, but the language of man and his origin and life 
upon earth are thought not unworthy of scientific con- 
sideration. This, however, is only incidental. To judge 
rightly the importance heretofore given to the study 
of Greek and Latin as well as the reasons for not al- 
lowing them to remain in the cold shade of retirement, 
to which in recent years they have been relegated, we 
must in justice consider what a knowledge of the 
classics necessarily implies. Without that knowledge 
any real mastery and thorough comprehension of mod- 
ern languages and literature is, in the highest sense, 
impossible. In fact, Greek and Latin are the founda- 
tions of the literature of Western civilization. Is litera- 
ture then to be pushed aside because it is not ob- 
viously utilitarian and practically valuable in science, 
in business, or in money-making? 

Literature and art are the fine flowers of the highest 
civilization. As Shakespeare has it: 

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. 

In literature are garnered up the thoughts which have 
moved the world and guided, all unseen, the histoiy 
of man. Worth more than all the money ever piled up 
are the happiness, the delights, the help, which litera- 
ture has brought to the children of men. A purely 
material existence, a wholly material civilization, are 
joyless, for it is only the things of beauty that are 
joys forever. In literature, in the creations of human 



38 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 

imagination, are to be found the men and women, 
outside the little immediate world of each one of us, 
whom we know and love best, whom we hate most, 
whom we constantly discuss. Real men and women 
die, but the men and women created by the imagina- 
tion of those who "body forth the forms of things un- 
known" live always. Ulysses and Hector, Don Quixote 
and Hamlet, are more real, are better known to us 
than any men who lived and walked the earth and 
whose deeds and words fill the pages of history. Think 
of the friends and companions literature has brought, 
to us, with whom we love to live and wander and dream 
the hours away. They come in an almost endless 
procession, bringing with them every emotion — sorrow 
and anger, love and hate, laughter, humor, adventure. 
These are the gifts of the imagination of men 
of genius endowed with the creative power, from 
Shakespeare with his world of men and women out 
and on through all the great literature of civilized man. 
Turn it as we will, proclaim the superior merits of 
science, which no one reverences and admires more 
than I, with all its vast gifts of knowledge, with all 
that it has devised and invented so beneficent and 
also so destructive to man, as strongly as you please; 
vaunt not only the necessity of mechanical industry 
but the advantages of money-getting as loudly as you 
can, and still even now the world admits that those 
to whom we award the honor of scholarship, whom 
we describe as cultivated and accomplished, must be 
men and women who know something, at least, of 



NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 39 

history and art and literature. And history, art and 
literature, so far as we are concerned, spring from, are 
related to or contrast with the great civilizations of 
Greece and Rome. Perhaps I can put my meaning 
best, and most broadly, by quoting what Walter Pater 
wrote of Pico della Mirandola, a true humanist as 
he was one of the earliest : 

The essence of humanism is the belief that nothing which 
has ever interested living men and women can wholly lose 
its vitality — no lang-uage they have spoken, nor oracle 
beside which they have hushed their voices, no dream which 
has once been entertained by actual human minds, nothing 
about which they have ever been passionate, or expended 
time and zeal. 

Here, perhaps, we may learn why it is that no man 
who has not come in contact at least, even if the 
contact was only that of a schoolboy, with those great 
literatures, and with that history through whose por- 
tals we must pass in order to reach the wonderful 
civilizations of Egypt and Asia Minor, would ever be 
called a scholar, using the word in its loosest sense, or 
a cultivated man in the world's acceptance of the 
phrase. Thus much power the now decried classics 
still retain, but it is easier to proceed by negatives 
in fixing their degree of importance than to give an 
exact definition of the educated man who is expected, 
at least, to know them by name. Mere classical eru- 
dition is now clearly inadequate; a knowledge, how- 
ever superficial, of the humanities, which was once re- 



40 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 

garded as all-sufficient, will no longer serve. I will 
not attempt this task, but will content myself with 
quoting a definition which I lately heard from one 
of the wisest, most learned and most widely accom- 
plished men I have ever known. You will observe 
that it is only a limitation, a statement, if you please, 
of the iiTeducible minimum of cultivation. He said : 

No one can be called a cultivated man who does not know, 
in addition to his own literature. Homer, Cervantes and the 
Arabian Nights, and comparatively few persons fulfil this 
condition. 

These requirements may seem unusual and very 
limited. But we must consider their implications be- 
fore we hastily dismiss them. Homer implies a knowl- 
edge of Greek, and therefore of Latm. Cervantes 
created the greatest single figure of literature out- 
side the world of Shakespeare and surpassed by very 
few within it. Men first perceived the comic side of 
the adventures, the homely sayings of Sancho, the 
humorous contrast between the knight and the squire. 
But as the years have passed by we have come to see 
in Don Quixote one of the rare cosmic characters 
which touch all human kind. Dr. Johnson names Don 
Quixote as one of the three books written by mere 
men which any reader ever wished were longer. The 
reason for this great compliment is not far to seek, for 
in Don Quixote we behold the aspirations of humanity 
with all their delusions and mistakes, their infinite 
pathos, their nobility and their tragic disappointments. 
But we are concerned, just now, with implications 



NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 41 

rather than the work itself. A knowledge of Don 
Quixote and Cervantes implies a knowledge of the 
Renaissance in Europe and of the conditions which 
brought to life and beauty the greatest work of Span- 
ish genius. 

The last requirement of my friend, the Arabian 
Nights, may seem odd. We are all brought up to 
think of them as fairy stories admirably suited to 
the entertainment of children. If, however, we ex- 
amine the originals, not only expurgated but enor- 
mously curtailed for the benefit of the nursery, we find 
these rambling tales filled with poems and philosoph- 
ical discussions. Just here, however, my friend has 
high authority with him. Gibbon says: "I soon tasted 
the Arabian Nights — a book of all ages, since in my 
present maturity I can revolve, without contempt, that 
pleasant medley of Oriental manners and supernatural 
fictions." As Thackeray once remarked: "There can 
be no gainsaying the sentence of that great judge. 
To have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having 
it written on the Dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from 
all the world admire and behold it." To be versed in 
the Arabian Nights, thus approved by Gibbon, implies 
also some knowledge of the philosophy, the poetry 
and the manners of the East, opening in many direc- 
tions vistas over which we must not Imger. I will 
only pause long enough to find my conclusion in one 
of these Oriental tales. 

Although it is not included in the accepted canon 
of the "Thousand and One Nights," perhaps the most 



42 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD 

famous and most familiar of the Arabian tales is the 
story of Aladdin. You all remember how, after he 
had built his palace and married his princess, the 
wicked magician came along and persuaded Aladdin's 
wife to change the old lamp for a new one. As a 
child, being behind the scenes and knowing the prop- 
erties of the old lamp, I used to think the poor princess 
a very silly woman. In later years I have seen rea- 
son to revise that judgment about the princess, and to 
find palliating explanations for her unhappy mistake. 
If we take the trouble to consider and reflect, we shall 
find much wisdom concealed in these fairy tales. The 
wicked magician was an astute person, with large 
knowledge of the world, and of both man and woman- 
kind. When he offered the new lamp for the old 
he appealed to two of the strongest of human emo- 
tions, the earnest desire we all have to get something 
for nothing, and the passion for novelty. He knew 
his princess, and he obtained the old, battered, rusty 
lamp. We need not follow the story further. In 
the end virtue triumphed, and vice was defeated, as 
ought to be the case in every good fairy story. But 
in the little transaction which I have just described, 
there is, I think, one of those morals which the Arabian 
tale tellers were also fond of hiding here and there 
in their narratives. It is a very simple lesson, and 
teaches us that it is, perhaps, weU to deliberate before 
we throw away an old lamp, for that very one may 
possess a magic which is not to be found in its new 
and glittering successor. 



A GREAT LIBRARY i 

This noble gift to learning comes to us with the 
shadow of a tragic sorrow - resting upon it. Unbidden 
there rises in our minds the thought of Lycidas, with 
all the glory of youth about him, the victim of 

. . . that fatal and perfidious bark 

Built in th' eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, 

That sank so low that sacred head of thine. 

But with the march of the years, which have devoured 
past generations, and to which we too shall succumb, 
the shadow of grief will pass, while the great memorial 
will remain. It is a monument to a lover of books, 
and in what more gracious guise than this can a man's 
memory go down to a remote posterity? He is the 
benefactor and the exemplar of a great host, for within 
that ample phrase all gather who have deep in their 
hearts the abidmg love of books and literature. They 
meet there upon common ground and with a like 
loyalty, from the bibliomaniac with his measured 
leaves, to the homo unius lihri; /rom the great collec- 
tor with the spoils of the world-famous printers and 
binders spread around him, to the poor student, who 

^ An address at 1I10 prcsicntation of tlie Widener Memorial Library 
to Harvard University, June 24, 1915. 

' Harry Elkins Widener, in memoiy of whom this libraiy was 
given, was drowned on the Titanic. 

43 



44 A GREAT LIBRARY 

appeals most to our hearts, with all the immortalities 
of genius enclosed in some battered, shilling volumes 
crowded together upon a few shabby shelves. 

But the true lovers of books are a goodly company 
one and all. No one is excluded except he who heaps 
up volumes of large cost with no love in his heart but 
only a cold desire to gratify a whim of fashion, or 
those others who deal in the books of the past as if 
they were postage stamps or bric-a-brac, as if they 
were soulless, senseless things; who speculate in them, 
build up artificial prices for great authors and small 
alike, and make the articles in which they traffic mere 
subjects of greed while they trade on the human weak- 
ness for the unique, even when the unique is destitute 
of any other value. Such as these last might well 
find a place among the enemies of books described 
by Mr. Blades. This commercialism which sees in 
books nothing but money, and prizes them solely by 
the fantastic heights to which the prices can be pushed 
in the auction room, whether the object be worthy or 
worthless, has of late not a little discredited one very 
beautiful and attractive side in the collection of books, 
the side which concerns the form rather than the con- 
tents, but which has nevertheless an enduring charm. 
Yet because we recoil from seeing a fortune paid for 
a mere specimen of printing, of slight intrinsic value 
and of no literary value at all in that precise form, 
it does not follow that we should therefore reject all 
gathering in of first editions as a trivial and uselessly 
expensive amusement. 



A GREAT LIBRARY 45 

No lover of books, to take the most salient example 
possible, can fail to long for the first folio as well 
as the quartos of Shakespeare's plays. Besides the senti- 
ment which any one, not wholly insensible, must feel, 
these most rare volumes are full of interest and instruc- 
tion, for they tell us much of the greatest genius in 
literature. The first edition as a rule, although not 
in Shakespeare's case, brings with it the pleasant 
thought that just in this form and in no other did it 
come from the press to him who created it. There is 
a happy satisfaction, too, in knowing that we have in 
our hand the volume which some well-loved author 
has held in his, if only to write his name upon the 
fly-leaf, for in this way there vibrates across the dead 
years a delicate sense of personal contact with its ap- 
pealing touch of human sympathy. Then, far beyond 
the reach of most of us, are the books of hours and 
devotion, so beautiful in their illuminations, and the 
marvels of the old binders, dear to us not only as 
examples of an artistic craft, but because they are 
charged with historical associations which go deeper 
and carry us further away from every-day life than 
all the fine-drawn tracery of the master workman who 
wrought the manifold devices. Of these rarities and 
wonders in the world of books, these first editions, 
these specimens of a lovely and bygone art, these 
worn and shabby volumes with their priceless notes 
on the margin and their well-remembered names 
penned or penciled upon the fly-leaves, there comes 
to us a collection which is the most intimate and per- 



46 A GREAT LIBRARY 

sonal part of this great gift. They speak to us most 
directly, as they will to succeeding generations, of 
the young lover of books so untimely taken, to whose 
memory this library, which encloses them, has been 
erected. The University is fortunate indeed when it 
receives at the same moment this stately building 
and such a collection of rare and precious volumes 
to grace its inner shrine. 

But this library, where all the accumulations of the 
University will have a dwelling-place, has a significance 
which goes beyond that of which I have spoken. No 
other university and scarcely any state or nation pos- 
sesses a library building so elaborately arranged as this, 
so fitted with every device which science and ingenuity 
can invent for the use of books by scholars and stu- 
dents. This is preeminently a student's library. It 
is not forced, as the Library of Congress has been until 
very lately, to absorb two copies of every pamphlet 
and of every book which obtains a copyright, a vast 
torrent of the ephemeral and the valueless upon which 
rari fiantes in gurgite vasto, are borne the comparatively 
small number of books worthy of preservation. It is 
not bound by tradition, like the British Museum, to 
find house room for every printed thing which myriads 
of presses pour out upon a wearied world. No gen- 
eral public with its insatiable demand for what are 
so charmingly described as "Juveniles and Fiction" 
can compel it to purchase "best sellers," which flutter 
their brief hour in gaudy paper wrappers upon the 
news-stands and book-stalls, and then are seen no 



A GREAT LIBRARY 47 

more. In a time when Job's supplication that his 
adversary would write a book has no longer any mean- 
ing, because not only all adversaries but all friends 
write books, the library of the university has the fine 
freedom which permits it to devote itself to only two 
kinds of books — the literature of knowledge and the 
literature of imagination. 

Within the wide, far-stretching boundaries of the 
first much is included. We begin with the books of 
simple inform.ation, repositories of facts, like statistics, 
newspapers and official records, destitute of literary 
quality, but all-important as the material in which the 
investigator makes his discoveries and from which the 
thinker and the philosopher draw their deductions. 
The true literature of knowledge is very different. Its 
scope is vast, and we find within it all the sciences and 
all the arts, history, philosophy in every form, meta- 
physics and certain kinds of criticism. Literature here 
is the handmaid of knowledge; too often a very 
neglected, dim and attenuated handmaiden, but some- 
times quite as important as the instruction which she 
brings with her to the minds of men. The scale 
ranges from a scientific work, perhaps of high im- 
portance, in which words are treated merely as a neces- 
sary vehicle for the transmission of thought, to writings 
like those of Thucydides, Tacitus or Gibbon, which are 
monuments of literature even more than they are 
histories of man's doings upon earth. Indeed, as we 
approach the highest examples in the literature of 



48 A GREAT LIBRARY 

knowledge, we are gradually merged in the achieve- 
ments of pure literature. 

When we read PlatG we pass insensibly from the 
philosophy, the social and economic speculations to 
the realm of poetry, and few passages in all litera- 
ture have greater beauty, are more imaginative than 
the famous description of the Cave or the dream of 
the lost Atlantis. Then there are the great auto- 
biographies, like St. Augustine, Rousseau, Franklin, 
Pepys, Casanova and Benvenuto Cellini, which almost 
alone have succeeded in making men who have lived as 
real to us as those created by the poet or the novelist, 
and in addition there is that other autobiography 
named Lavengro, where we wander to and fro upon the 
earth in happy uncertainty as to whether what we read 
is fact or fancy. Hovering in the debatable ground be- 
tween the two great divisions of literature, we meet 
the essayists as they are inadequately called, as few 
in number as they are charming and attractive. Mon- 
taigne, La Bruyere, Addison, Charles Lamb and Dr. 
Holmes are there to greet us. Wit and wisdom, knowl- 
edge and reflection mingle with the creations of imag- 
ination and defy classification. We only know that we 
love them, these friends of the sleepless and the watch- 
ers, who will delight us for hours, and never be offended 
or less fascinating if we give them only scattered and 
unregarded minutes. By such pleasant paths as these 
we pass easily, smoothly, unconsciously almost, from 
the literature of knowledge to the literature of imag- 



A GREAT LIBRARY 49 

ination, to the beautiful region where knowledge is not 
imposed upon us, but subtly conveyed, where facts 
are in truth wholly "unconcerning" and where litera- 
ture in its finest sense is all in all. 

Here one stops, hesitates, feels helpless. What profit 
is there in an efi'ort to describe in minutes what we find 
in this vast, enchanted land, when lifetimes are all 
too short to tell its wonders? We cannot cover litera- 
ture with a phrase or define it in a sentence. The pas- 
sage in a great writer which comes nearest to doing this 
is one which I met for the first time nearly fifty years 
since. Twenty-five years ago I should have hesitated 
to quote it because it was familiar to every schoolboy. 
I hesitate to quote it now because I fear it will appeal 
only to elderly persons whose early education was 
misdirected. I must confess that it is written in one 
of the languages which are conventionally described 
as "dead," because convention has no sense of humor. 
Strangely enough it appears in a legal argument made 
in behalf of a Greek man of letters whose citizenship 
was contested, and no court in history has ever listened 
to a plea which was at once so noble in eloquence and 
so fine as literature. I am old-fashioned enough to 
think that it possesses qualities far beyond the reach of 
any utilitarian touchstone and well worthy of fresh 
remembrance. The words I am about to quote have 
that combination of splendor and concision in which 
Latin surpasses all other tongues. 

Thus then Cicero spoke in behalf of Archias, sum- 



50 A GREAT LIBRARY 

moning books and libraries, literature and learning, 
to the support of his client: 

Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, 
secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium prse- 
bent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pemoctant 
nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. 

How fine and full it is. So fine that it seems as if 
addition were impossible and yet we know that there 
is still something more, for to no one of us can litera- 
ture be summed up in a sentence. Like Cleopatra the 
infinite variety is always there touching in each heart 
and mind some different chord. Yet as we follow the 
definitions through the generations we meet those 
which bring new thoughts and help us to the finality 
which the lovers of books are always seeking when 
they strive to set forth what libraries really mean 
to them and to the world. Come down across the 
centuries past the Ciceronian period, past the decline 
into the deep covering darkness where the literature of 
Greece and Rome disappeared and Virgil almost alone 
survived because in that pit of ignorance he was 
thought to be a magician. Then we can watch the com- 
ing of the dawn, the rebirth of the learning and the 
poetry and drama lost in the dark ages. Here is the way 
the returning light affected one of the remarkable 
minds of the Renaissance, a man set down by his 
own and later generations as the embodiment of evil, 
and yet it was in this way that books spoke to him. 



A GREAT LIBRARY 51 

"When evening has arrived," says Machiavelli, "I re- 
turn home and go into my study. I pass into the 
antique courts of ancient men, where, welcomed lov- 
ingly by them, I feed upon the food which is my own, 
and for which I was born. Here, I can speak with 
them without show, and can ask of them the motives 
of their actions; and they respond to me by virtue of 
their humanity. For hours together, the miseries of 
life no longer annoy me; I forget every vexation; I 
do not fear poverty; and death itself does not dismay 
me, for I have altogether transferred myself to those 
with whom I hold converse." 

Let us pass on from the cold and fine Italian mind 
of the age of the Borgias to the days when the great 
movement of the Renaissance had taken possession 
of England, when her navigators took continents and 
her philosophers all learning, to be their provinces. 
What says the greatest of their scholars and students, 
when he stands in the presence of books? 

"We see then how far the monuments of wit and 
learning are more durable than the monuments of 
power or of the hands. For have not the verses of 
Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, 
without the loss of a syllable, or letter; during which 
time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been 
decayed and demolished? . . . But the images of men's 
wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from 
the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation'. 
Neither are they fitly to be called images, because 
they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds 



52 A GREAT LIBRARY 

of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and 
opinions in succeeding ages. So that if the invention of 
the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches 
and commodities from place to place, and consociateth 
the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, 
how much more are letters to be magnified, which as 
ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages 
so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, 
and inventions, the one of the other?" 

Hovv^ the contemplation of books and learning seem 
to lift up even the mind of Bacon, as they do whenever 
we stop to consider the utterances of great intellects 
while we cross the centuries. Come now to that cen- 
tury nearest but one to our own and listen to the voices 
there. 

Dr. Johnson, who is described by BoswelFs uncle 
as "a robust genius bom to grapple with whole libra- 
ries," and who said perhaps as many good things about 
literature as almost any one in history, asked once in 
his emphatic way, ''What should books teach but the 
art of living?" This does not differ in essence from 
Matthew Arnold's famous dictum that poetry, the 
highest form of literature, must be a criticism of life. 
Both are admirable, both, I venture to think, like the 
rest not quite complete, and how indeed could it be 
otherwise? 

When we enter the wide domain of the literature 
of imagination we find ourselves among the greatest 
minds which humanity has produced, so great, so dif- 
ferent from all others that we are fain to give them 



A GREAT LIBRARY 53 

a name we cannot define, and call them geniuses. 
There we are in the company of the poets, the makers, 
the singers. All are there from the author of the book 
of Job and the writers of the Psalms an 1 the Song of 
Songs, onward to the glory that was Greece; onward 
still to Lucretius and Horace and Catullus and Virgil; 
onward still to him whom Virgil led, who covered all 
Italy with his hood; onward to the "chief of organic 
numbers," and still onward to the poets of the last 
century and of our own time, for although poetry 
waxes and wanes it can never pass wholly away. There, 
too, we find the great poets who were also dramatists, 
who created the men and women who never lived and 
will never die, whom we know better than any men 
or women of history who once had their troubles here 
upon earth. There we meet and know so well Hector 
and Achilles, Helen and Andromache upon the plains 
of Troy, where, alas! men are fighting savagely to-day. 
We wander over the wine-dark sea with Ulysses and 
listen to some of the greatest stories ever written. 

We come down the ages and find ourselves in the 
time of Shakespeare, of whom it may be said as the 
great Roman critic said of Menander, "Omnem vitae 
imaginem expressit," and then we can go forth in the 
company of Cervantes' knight and squire, with the 
humor and sadness, the laughter and tears of humanity 
traveling with them. Nearly two centuries more go 
by and we are in the company of Faust, tasting the 
temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, touch- 
ing the whole of humanity in its lusts, its passions 



54 A GREAT LIBRARY 

and its weaknesses, and if well-breathed we can journey 
on into the realm of speculation and philosophy and 
mysticism, and gaze once more upon a 

The face that launched a thousand ships. 
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. 

So we come to the era of the novelists and there are 
made free of another world of people among whom 
we find the friends and companions of our lives. They 
are always with us, ready at our call, and we can 
never lose them. 

These are some of the aspects, some of the inevitable 
suggestions of a library, of a great collection of books. 
In this place, in this spacious building, they offer one 
of the best assurances a university can have of strength 
and fame and numbers, for a great library draws men 
and women in search of education as a garden of 
flowers draws the bees. Carlyle indeed went even 
further when he said, "The true university of these 
days is a collection of books." Such a library as this 
is not only a pillar of support to learning but it is a 
university in itself. 

I have spoken of it thus far as it appears here 
in its primary capacity, in its first great function as a 
student's library, to which not only students old and 
young will come, but to which the historian and the 
man of science, the scholar, the teacher and the pro- 
fessor, the poet, the novelist and the philosopher will 
repair. A splendid service this to render to mankind. 
But there is still something more, an attribute of the 



A GREAT LIBRARY 55 

library which is as wide as humanity, for books are 
the records of all that we know of human deeds and 
thoughts, of the failures, the successes, the hopes, the 
aspirations of mankind. "Books," said Dr. Johnson, 
"help us to enjoy life or teach us to endure it." 

Here, as to all great collections of books, as to all 
books anywhere which have meaning and quality, come 
those who never write, who have no songs to sing, 
no theories with which they hope to move or enlighten 
the world, men and women who love knowledge and 
literature for their own sakes and are content. Here 
those who toil, those who are weary and heavy-laden 
come for rest. Here among the books we can pass out 
of this work-a-day world, never more tormented, more 
in anguish than now, and find, v for a brief hour at least, 
happiness, perchance consolation, certainly another 
world and a blessed forgetfulness of the din and the 
sorrows which surround us. Here, for the asking, the 
greatest geniuses will speak to us and we can rise into 
a purer atmosphere and become close neighbors to 
the stars. As an English poet writes of Shakespeare 
in these troubled days: 

0, let me leave the plains behind, 
And let me leave the vales below! 

Into the highlands of the mind, 
Into the mountains let me go. 

Here are the heights, crest beyond crest, 
With Himalayan dews impearled; 

And I will watch from Everest 

The long heave of the surging world. 



56 A GREAT LIBRARY 

It is a great, a noble gift, which brings us all this 
in such ample measure and lays it at the feet of our 
beloved University. The gratitude of all who love 
Harvard, of all who love books, goes out from their 
hearts unstinted to the giver. 

They mean so much, these books, so much more 
than I in these halting sentences have been able to 
express. For there is to books a human side inherent 
in the silent leaves which even Cicero omitted and 
which Dr. Johnson and Matthew Arnold wholly passed 
by. We find that single thought in the mind of Whit- 
man, when he wrote of a book: 

Camarado, this is no book, 
Who touches this touches a man, 
(Is it night? Are we here together alone?) 
It is I you hold and who holds you, 
I spring from the pages into your arms — decease calls me 
forth. 

Rightly considered in this aspect, the books mean so 
much, just now, when freedom of speech, and freedom 
of thought, when liberty and democracy are in jeopardy 
every hour, that I must turn at last if I would find 
fit utterance to the great champion of all these things, 
and repeat to you the famous sentences of Milton : 

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain 
a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose 
progeny thpy are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the 
purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that 
bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously 



A GREAT LIBRARY 57 

productive as those fabulous Dragon's teeth; and being sown 
up and down may chance to spring up armed men. And 
yet, on the other hand, unless wariness is used as good 
almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills 
a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a 
good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it 
were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; 
but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, 
embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS ' 

For more than five hundred years scholars and men 
of education have been discussing the poetry, the 
drama, the philosophy, the literature of Greece and 
Rome which we are wont to include in the word 
"classics." When any one therefore attempts to give 
utterance to his thoughts upon that vast subject the 
line of Terence, "Nullum est jam dictum, quod non 
dictum sit prius," stares him in the face with all the 
relentless warning of Dante's inscription over the gates 
of Hell. We can only console ourselves with the witty 
comment of Aelius Donatus, which comes to us oddly 
enough through Saint Jerome, 



'Tereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt," 



and go forward with our repetitions and reiterations 
of what wiser and better men have said before. There 
is only one difference to be noted between us and our 
predecessors and that is in the present mode of treat- 
ment. Until within fifty years, broadly speaking, the 
acceptance of the classics as the foundation and essen- 
tial condition of the higher education was unques- 
tioned and the note of all discussion was that of praise 
and admiration. Now the position of those who up- 

^ An address at the Conference on Classical Studies in Liberal 
Education, held at Princeton University, June 2, 1917. 

58 



^ 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 59 

hold classical education is defensive; the friends of 
the classics are contending for the very existence of 
the learning which they love. There has come a vast 
change in the attitude toward the "humanities" of 
those who guide education. Is this change and is the 
consequent assault upon the classics justified? Is it 
not being carried to a most injurious extreme? 

We cannot answer these questions without a glance 
at the past, without recalling for a moment the com- 
monplaces of modern history, because modern history 
begins with the revival of learning and the revival of 
learning was the resurrection of the literature and the 
civilization of Greece and Rome. From the days of 
the Italian humanists when the discovery of a Greek 
or Latin manuscript, a palimpsest perhaps hidden in 
some remote convent, was equal almost to a patent of 
nobility, for some five hundred years the classics were 
not only regarded as the symbol and test of the high- 
est education but as the highest education itself. Some 
few classical authors were familiar to Europe long 
before the age of Petrarch, but the great discoveries 
of classical literature were coincident with what is 
known as the Renaissance. It matters not whether 
the resurrection of this great and long-buried literature 
was the cause of the Renaissance, or was a powerful 
influence or was merely a manifestation, a product of 
the time. In the minds of men the revival of learning 
— that is, of the classics — was indissolubly associated 
with the rebirth of intellectual freedom, with the break- 
ing of the fetters of the age of faith, with the liberation 



60 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

of the human mind, with the dispersion of the dark 
clouds which had obscured the vision of men and which 
had made this world for the mass of the people a 
foul and cruel place, reeking with filth and disease and 
steeped in ignorance, on the theory that only in this 
manner could eternal tortures be avoided and eternal 
joys in the next world be secured. When Fox founded 
Corpus Christi College at Oxford early in the sixteenth 
century he established two chairs for Greek and Latin 
"to extirpate barbarism." Even so men in those days 
looked upon the two great languages as bringing them 
from darkness to light, from barbarism to civilization. 
It is not to be wondered at therefore that men felt 
a profound gratitude to the studies to which they at- 
tributed the new birth of intellectual freedom or that 
they made those. studies the touchstone of the highest 
education, the badge of scholarship without which, 
even if the acquaintance was only nominal, no one 
could assert that he was educated either liberally or as 
a gentleman. This natural gratitude with its pro- 
found and lasting effect upon the minds of men was 
very far from being purely sentimental. In the litera- 
ture of Greece and Rome, thus disclosed anew to the 
world, was preserved the noblest poetry, lyric, epic 
and dramatic which the imagination of man had 
brought forth — unrivaled then, never surpassed since. 
In the surviving ruins of temples and palaces, in the 
statues taken from the earth, there met the eyes of 
the eager searchers an art and an architecture of ex- 
traordinary perfection both in proportion and in form 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 61 

which then regained possession of the world and which 
has never ceased to infiuence profoundly all that the 
architect and the artist have since produced for the 
instruction, the delight or the use of their fellow men 
from that day to this. As the manuscripts gradually 
came forth into the light there was disclosed the his- 
tory of antiquity from Herodotus to Tacitus and 
models were thus given to the world of what history 
and biography might be. Philosophy and metaphysics, 
culminating in Plato and Aristotle and in the discourses 
of Socrates, put at the service of mankind the specu- 
lations of some of the most remarkable minds the world 
has ever known, ranging over every field of human 
thought and affecting and advancing knowledge and 
civilization with a force which must always be reckoned 
with and which lies at the very roots of all that has 
been smce accompHshed. There too, in this literature 
of the past, were uncovered the foundations of the very 
sciences which would now consign the classics to ob- 
livion. In Euclid were found the system and problems 
of geometry; the science of numbers and arithmetic 
had engaged the acute Greek intelligence; Lucretius 
embodied the atomic theory of the Epicureans in one 
of the world's great poems, and the essays, orations and 
letters of Cicero gave style to the prose of modern 
Europe. In the appliances which improve the condi- 
tions of daily existence the men of the Renaissance 
found ample lessons in the work of the Roman engi- 
neers which had covered Europe with roads and 
bridges; in systems of drainage as old as Babylon, a 



62 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

marvelous contrast to the filth of the medieval cities 
which used their streets as open sewers and bred disease 
and plagues and the black death among the people. 
They contemplated at last with considerate eyes the 
ruins of the baths and gymnasiums and slowly learned 
that personal cleanlines promoted health and comfort 
and that dirt was not really essential to sanctity. 

So it came to pass that Greek and Latin, with Mathe- 
matics as a companion, took possession of education 
and held it well down into the second half of the nine- 
teenth century. During this uncontested reign came 
not only such events as the discovery of America and 
the Reformation but a vast development of art and 
literature, the great modem literature of the world, 
sculpture inspired by Greece but touched with the 
imagination of Christianity, and such frescoes and 
paintings as the world had never seen before. Nor 
did the devotion to classical scholarship narrow the 
field of intellectual activity. Invention was at work 
and the bounds of knowledge were widened beyond all 
that men had ever imagined to be possible. Science, 
which in certain lower forms has of late grown so 
hostile to the classics, could hardly be said to have been 
impeded or retarded by their supremacy during a 
period which began with Copernicus and Galileo, which 
included Bacon and Newton and closed with Charles 
Darwin and Pasteur, to take at random only a few 
of the greatest among many great names. The classical 
system supplemented by mathematics was known as 
a liberal education in contradistinction to an educa- 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 63 

tion devoid of classical studies or confined to special and 
technical training. The phrase was just, because what- 
ever the defects of the classical education it may truly 
be said that it has always instilled into all those sub- 
jected to it a respect for knowledge and learning in any 
form and in any direction, possessing a really liberal- 
izing influence which seems at times sadly lacking in 
purely scientific or technical training. 

Despite the fact, however, that the classical educa- 
tion was essentially liberal in its attitude toward all 
education and all learning, the opposition to it which 
began, roughly speaking, some fifty years ago, was 
directed against its exclusiveness, and sought to over- 
throw its monopoly of studies which rested on the 
doctrine that whatever else a student might acquire 
he could never be deemed a thoroughly educated man 
unless he had at least passed through a certain course 
of classics. The movement against this exclusiveness 
was based no doubt upon sound reasons. It was 
entirely successful and the doors of our universities 
were opened to those who offered scientific courses or 
modern languages in place of one at least of the clas- 
sical requirements. But the movement has not stopped 
at this point. It is now pressing on toward the prac- 
tical exclusion of the classics, toward a complete re- 
versal of the old system, and there are many prepara- 
tory schools supposed to fit boys for the higher edu- 
cation where Greek at least is substantially aban- 
doned. In the universities themselves the tendency is 
more and more in the direction of giving up the classics 



64 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

and making the entire essential curriculum consist of 
scientific and economic studies united in some measure 
with modern languages. 

This comparatively recent and very extreme hostility 
to the classics, to the studies which lifted modem 
civilization out of the darkness that followed the fall 
of the Roman Empire and which for nearly five hun- 
dred years was the foundation and the test of the 
higher education, seems to deserve examination. Be- 
fore the classics are relegated to a few scholars, philolo- 
gists and lovers of literature, let us inquire whether 
it is wise thus to sentence them to banishment. In 
making this inquiry it is well to begin with the funda- 
mental question as to what education is in the last 
analysis. 

The first and dominant object of all education is 
to teach the child, the boy or girl, to use his or her 
mind; that is, in other words, to teach them so to 
control their minds that they can apply them to any 
subject of study and especially to a subject which 
it is a duty and not a pleasure to master and under- 
stand. Y/hen this power to use and control the mind 
is once thoroughly attained the boy or girl can then 
learn anything which his or her mind is capable of 
receiving and acquiring. Very few minds can master 
every branch of learning. The man who can learn 
languages may be wholly unable to go beyond the rudi- 
ments of mathematics. Some minds again are much 
more powerful than others, just as some bodies are 
more muscular than others, and are able to go further 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 65 

in any direction than the average intelligence. We all 
have our mental limitations. But it is none the less 
profoundly true that those who have been taught to 
use and control their minds can apply them to any 
subject and go as far as their individual limitations 
permit. So far all, I believe, who have reflected upon 
the subject will agree. I think we may also agree that 
as any form of exercise will develop some muscles 
and some forms will develop all, so any kind of study 
properly pursued, whether it is arithmetic or Sanscrit 
roots, will develop the muscles of the mind and give 
it the power of continuous application by a mere ex- 
ercise .of the will. It is equally true, however, that 
the use of dumb-bells on the one hand and walking 
on the other will not develop the same set of muscles, 
although both contribute generally to health and 
strength. In attainmg to the command of the mind, 
to the power of controlling its application by will, 
the same rule holds good, but there is a wide choice 
of method, because while any study can be used to 
develop strength and vigor, some will narrow and others 
broaden ; some will cease to have any value beyond the 
simple production of strength, while others equally 
efficient in this direction wiU lead to results which 
bring lifelong uses and pleasures. 

It is at this point- that the division of opinion be- 
gins. The old and long established curriculum which 
was confined to the classics and to mathematics was 
quite as efficient as any other system in teaching a boy, 
if the teaching was good, to apply and control his 



66 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

mind. This also might be said in its behalf, that when 
a boy was capable of learning and also of retaining 
anything which he had been taught, the two capabili- 
ties being by no means inseparable, he went from 
school to college or into the world really knowing 
something about one or two subjects, instead of know- 
ing little or nothing of a great many subjects upon 
which his time had been dispersed, a result which seems 
to be preferred at the present day by educational ex- 
perts no doubt far wiser than those of the past. If 
I may be permitted, let me take an illustration from 
my own experience. There was ascertain boy, whom 
I knew very intimately, brought up as we all were fifty 
years since under the old curriculum. When he went 
to college he knew thoroughly the Greek and Latin 
grammars in which he had been painfully and reluc- 
tantly drilled. He knew both the syntax and prosody 
and was fully possessed of the idea that a false quan- 
tity in Latin was little short of a crime; his feelings 
on this point were like those of Browning's Spanish 
monk as to the 

"great text in Galatians, 
Once you trip on it, entails 
Twenty-nine distinct damnations. 
One sure, if another fails." 

He could write Latin prose. It was far from classical, 
but it was grammatical and comprehensible. He could 
read Latin and Greek at sight; that is, Greek no more 
difficult than the Crito and Gorgias which Jie studied 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 67 

in his sophomore year. He was able to learn enough 
arithmetic, algebra, plane and solid geometry and trig- 
onometry to pass all his examinations with rather high 
percentages, but he was wholly unable to retain them 
and they fled after the examinations and left "not 
a rack behind." In all that concerned mathematics his 
limitations were hopeless. In the middle of his college 
course, tempted by the attractions and greater ease of 
the elective system, he deserted his Latin and Greek, 
which he has regretted all his life since, for although 
he has retained his Latin so that he can read it with 
pleasure, his Greek, neglected, has become laborious 
and would require to regain it in proper measure time 
which a much occupied life could not spare. Since 
those far-off days the boy has had sons and grandsons 
who in turn have been blessed by all the most modern 
advantages and latest improvements in education. He 
has observed them closely and he has failed to see that 
they were better taught than he was or knew more or 
could use their minds better than he could at the same 
age. Of course after schools ended his sons came to 
know far more than their father because they had finer 
intelligences. But the boy of whom I speak has re- 
mained so unregenerate that he is trying even now to 
make sure that his grandsons are taught Greek at 
school, so that in the days he will not see they may 
at least know what resulted from the wrath of Achilles 
and why people speak of bending the bow of Odysseus. 
I can hear the wise educator of to-day, as I indulge 
in this reminiscence, exclaim at such an education as I 



68 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

have described and rejoice that it has been done away 
with. Perhaps he is right. I should not think of set- 
ting my opinion against his. Yet I cannot but feel 
some doubt of his absolute correctness creep over me 
when I consider the events of the last three years, 
as to the perfection of our most modern civilization 
which is so largely the work of our most advanced 
methods of education. I have become very sceptical 
as to the wisdom which would cast the literature of 
Greece and Rome upon the dust heaps, when I have 
contemplated the performances of the most diversely 
and most thoroughly educated people in the world, 
from whom we have so largely borrowed in the way of 
education ; when I have seen that people develop to the 
highest point the science of destroying human lives, 
as perhaps was to have been expected; when I have 
seen them produce an organized barbarism far surpass- 
ing in its savage efficiency any that has ever afflicted 
the world; when I have witnessed the deeds wrought 
by the products of the most modern and improved 
methods of education which surpass in wanton destruc- 
tion, in equally wanton cruelty, in sheer naked horror, 
anything which history can, show; when I have beheld 
all this I have seriously doubted whether the most 
modern education has been quite such a complete 
success as its advocates assert. In the centuries of 
classical education which followed the Renaissance and 
the revival of learning there were wars in abundance^ — 
generally needless, sometimes desolating, often cruel, 
always destructive and sad. But in all that long period 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 69 

there was never anything so wholly hideous as that 
which we have seen in this war now raging in Europe. 
"Ruin has taught me thus to ruminate" and I think 
that it is easy to show that to detect a connection be- 
tween methods of education and the events of the 
present world-wide war is not wholly fanciful. Mean- 
time let me ask pardon for the long digression to which 
my little illustration has given rise and let us return to 
the main question. 

Admitting that any form of learning can if properly 
administered teach the use and the control of the 
mind; admitting that there is a wide choice in the 
forms to be adopted for this purpose and that it is 
well that the classical exclusiveness or monopoly has 
been ended, let us consider if it is not also well to 
resist the attempt now on foot to drive the classics 
from the preparatory schools and treat them with a 
cold and almost deadly indifference in the universities. 

The reasons given for this treatment of the classics 
are various in form but eventually the same in sub- 
stance. They may all practically be reduced to the 
objection made to me very lately, when I was urging 
that the classics ought to be taught in eveiy school 
which prepares for the higher education, to the effect 
that they were of no use in after life. I have often 
quoted in this connection Lowell's definition of a uni- 
versity, as a place where nothing useful was taught, 
and beneath the wit lies a sound philosophy demon- 
strating that there must be places where learning, 
scholarship and knowledge can be pursued and acquired 



70 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

for their own sake, because if their fate is to be de- 
cided simply by the money test they will soon wither 
away, and thought and civilization and the higher life 
of the intellect will die with them. I have used the 
words "money test," and when people say the classics 
are of no use they mean very frequently, if not very 
generally, that they will not help a man to make 
money. If this was applied to the pursuits which 
have no purpose except to enable a rnan to earn his 
own living, a high and primary duty, it would be cer- 
tainly sound; b^t the higher education, which multi- 
tudes desire and many in varying degrees attain, goes 
beyond the manual occupations and aims at least to 
develop the purely intellectual faculties. Here the 
mere money test seems unsatisfactory; in fact many 
persons regard it as a very sordid test indeed.. The 
apostles and teachers of religion, the moralists, the I 
poets, the dramatists, the artists, the philosophers, the } 
students of science and of nature, the men whose 
thought has moved the world and led humanity in its 
groping, stumbling march across the centuries, have 
rarely been money seekers or money getters. Without 
such men and such minds it is highly probable that we 
should still be running naked in the woods and the 
opportunities even for making money would be very 
small. Tried by the money test alone everything 
but reading, writing and arithmetic would properly be 
excluded and therefore I think we may discard money 
making as a wholly worthless test for the exclusion of 
the classics or of any other study which should engage 

I 

.i 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 71 

the attention of those who seek in any degree the 
higher education. 

The larger objection that the classics are neither 
necessary nor useful in after life to those who have 
studied them in school or college is so vague that it 
can only be dealt with in general terms. As to the 
question of the necessity I can only reply in the words 
of the greatest of geniuses who made a little learning 
go a very long way and gathered a small fortune at 
the same time. When Regan says "What need one?" 
Lear replies: 

"0! Reason not the need; our basest beggars 
Are in the poorest thing superfluous: 
Allow not nature more than nature needs, 
Man's life is cheap as beast's." 

When we come to the question of utility the field is a 
wide one and the tests must be comparative and cannot 
be absolute, but a little inquiry and consideration are 
not out of place before we accept the dogma of the 
votaries of applied science and of the mechanic arts as 
well as of so-called practical men. Take the learned 
professions. Surely it is well that the clergy should 
have some knowledge of the language of the New 
Testament and of that other in which a large part of 
the Christian world repeat their prayers and read their 
Bibles. It cannot be wholly without value to physi- 
cians and surgeons to be acquainted with the language 
and the literature of the race among whom their noble 
and beneficent profession finds its birthplace or of the 



72 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

language in which they still write their prescriptions, or 
of both these languages from which they bring forth for 
their new drugs and new diseases names which not 
infrequently they mispronounce. Lawyers no doubt 
can make a living, and often a very good one, knowing 
only the statutes and the more obvious rules of plead- 
ing and practise. But it can hardly be questioned that 
if they go beyond this limited region a familiarity with 
the language which enshrines the maxims they quote, 
and in which is written that gi^eat system of jurispru- 
dence bequeathed to us by the Romans and still fol- 
lowed in most countries of Western civilization, is not 
only useful but desirable. If we turn to the higher 
sciences we find a like condition. The astronomer 
cannot explore the heavens without seemg the beauti- 
ful mythology of Greece forever written in the stars. 
The Greek alphabet figures in his catalogues and calcu- 
lations and some of his greatest forerunners wrote in 
Latin. The naturalists, the botanists, the geologists, 
the biologists, not only owe their very names to the 
classics which some of them despise, but it would not 
come amiss if they knew, as no doubt many of them do, 
something of the languages from which they take their 
nomenclatures and of the literatures where appear the 
first guesses at scientific truths and the first and often 
very brilliant speculations as to the secrets of the 
Universe. In philology, anthropology and archeology 
a knowledge of Latin and Greek is of course essential. 
As to literature it is needless to argue. A literary man 
should know something of literature, and litera^,ure 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 73 

includes the writings of Greece and Rome. In all these 
instances which I have cited it is difficult to find justifi- 
cation for asserting that the study of the classics is a 
waste of time because they are useless in after life. 

It will, I know, be objected that I have mentioned 
only learned professions, the higher sciences and litera- 
ture and have omitted that supremely important per- 
son whom certain people desire most especially to pro- 
tect against the ravages of the tune- wasting classics — 
"the average man." I am as far a§ possible from 
forgetting him. Lincoln told John Hay one morning 
how he had dreamed the night before that he entered 
a crowded hall to make a speech. As he passed down 
the aisle he heard some one say, ''What a common-look- 
ing man," and in his dream he turned to the man who 
had spoken and said, "My friend, God loves common- 
looking men. That's why He makes so many of them." 
The "average man" is the central figure in our problem. 
Repeatedly have I been told that there was no use in 
teaching the classics to boys in school or college because 
the "average man" never used them or recurred to them 
in after life. One feels inclined to say "All the worse 
for the 'average man' " and to feel sorry for his loss of 
so much that is elevating and delightful. But admit- 
ting the truth of the objection, how much real force is 
there in it when one applies the comparative test? How 
large a part do mathematics and science in various 
forms play in the daily life and current interests of 
the "average man"? How many "average men" amuse 
their leisure by solving algebraic problems, or by trying 



74 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

to conceive the fourth dimension; how many can 
explain to you — I take an obvious illustration — the 
Mendelian theory of the dominant and recessive quali- 
ties, or the Linnaean system, or tell you of the move- 
ments and appearances of the faunp. of Europe during 
the glacial periods and intervals, or even name to you 
all the great constellations of stars which look down 
upon them nightly in silent splendor? My occupations 
have brought me into contact with very many average 
men and also with men above and below the average, 
and far more have referred to the history and literature 
of Greece and Rome than to any of the well-known 
scientific subjects to which I have at randojn alluded. 
The fact is that not to know who Mendel was or what 
the fossils show as to animal life is not necessarily 
esteemed a mark of ignorance, but never to have heard 
of Socrates, or Pericles, of Hannibal, or Caesar or 
Cicero, is held to indicate a very defective education to 
say the least. And yet no one would think of arguing 
that boys should not be made acquainted with the 
simpler forms of mathematics and geometry because in 
after years the "average man" as a rule finds little use 
and less pleasure from them in daily life. 

While it is true that the strongest and most intoler- 
ant hostility to the classics comes in the name of 
science, sometimes assumed without warrant by the 
persons who employ it, there is another movement 
against the languages and literature of Greece and 
Rome conducted by those who urge that they be 
displaced and replaced by modem languages which 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 75 

are either their children or their debtors. No one, 
I think, can feel more keenly than I the importance 
of modern languages. The man who can read, still 
more the man who can speak one or more languages 
other than his own, doubles, trebles, multiplies almost 
indefinitely his capacity, his usefulness, his eflGiciency 
and his enjoyments. I am, as I have said, an unre- 
generate person and I am glad that I had a classical 
education but I have always regretted that I was not 
taught Latin and Greek by ear first, taught to speak 
them in the way all languages, spoken or unspoken, 
modern or ancient, should be taught. No one will go 
further than I in advocating the study of modem lan- 
guages but I am utterly unable to see why it should 
be considered a prerequisite to their study to displace 
the classics. They are complementary, not opposed, 
and in the higher education certainly the classics and 
the modern languages ought to go hand in hand. It 
was said that Yon Moltke was able to keep silent in six 
languages, a marvelous feat even in one. But the 
power to speak after a fashion two or three languages 
is as common as Von Moltke's many-tongued silence is 
rare and is not incompatible with ignorance or 
illiteracy. There are also many persons like Thack- 
eray's couriers who spoke, every one of them, several 
languages "indifferently ill." It is a peculiarly profit- 
able accomplishment in such cases and usually leads 
to success as a courier, a concierge, a hotelkeeper, and 
the like, all excellent occupations but not concerned 
with the higher education. It is quite certain that a 



76 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

man may speak one or more modern languages very- 
well and know and enjoy their literatures without hav- 
ing studied the classics, but that is no argument against 
possessing also a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Such 
knowledge cannot but help any man in the modern 
languages of Europe, for they have all borrowed or 
have sprung from Latin and Greek. A man may easily 
speak a modem language other than his own ahnost 
faultlessly but unless he has some acquaintance with 
Greek and Latin he can never hope for real scholarship 
in the spoken tongue which he has acquired or for a 
thorough comprehension of it. The study and acquisi- 
tion of modern languages instead of being a reason 
for the expulsion of the classics from our schools and 
universities are in reality the strongest argument in 
favor of their retention. The teaching of the one 
should always imply instruction in the other. 

It is also urged sometimes that it is a waste of time 
to spend it upon the classics because translations serve 
every purpose. The great authority of Emerson is 
cited always in support of this contention and there is 
no doubt that he gave high if undue value to the trans- 
lation. I am a lover of Emerson and there are very few 
who have written either prose or poetry who have 
meant more to me than he. But in that marvelous 
and splendid intellect the critical faculty was not the 
strongest and there seem to be blind spots in the intel- 
lectual vision as there are in the eye. Emerson, for 
instance, spoke of Poe to Mr. Howells as "that jingle- 
man." One may like or dislike Poe, admire him or 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 77 

contemn him, but his place in the long annals of Eng- 
lish poetry cannot be denied nor can his extraordinary 
mastery of metrics and of rhyme, of melody and 
cadence and rhythm be omitted from the history or 
from the glories of English verse. To call him a 
"jingle-man" simply shows that Emerson was in those 
respects what the musicians call tone-deaf. In a less 
degree the same may be said of his opinion of transla- 
tions. A man far inferior to Emerson in all ways but 
a highly trained and more discriminating critic takes 
a very different view. Boileau said: "Do you know 
why the ancients have so few admirers? It is because 
at least three-quarters of those who j^iave translated 
them are either ignorant or dull. Madame de 
Lafayette, who had the finest intelligence of any 
woman in France and who wrote the best, compared a 
poor translator to a lackey whom his mistress sends to 
convey a compliment to some one. That which his 
mistress has said to him in most polished phrase he 
will render most coarsely and will cripple and mutilate 
it; the greater the delicacy of the compliment the worse 
will be the lackey's version: there in a word is the 
most perfect image of a bad translator." The same 
just thought is expressed more tersely by Macaulay, 
when, describing Mrs. Thrale's anecdotes after they 
had passed through Mr. Croker's hands, he says that 
they become "as flat as champagne in decanters or 
Herodotus in Beloe's version." 

These judgments on a largq class of translations are 
much nearer the truth than Emerson's paradox. We 



78 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

are all deeply indebted to translators and translations, 
for very few of us command many languages and no 
one all the languages from which we desire to obtain 
either information or the gratification of our tastes in 
literature. Yet it cannot be denied that in the change 
from the original to a new medium spniething, how- 
ever impalpable, is always lost in the process. In the 
literatures of knowledge or mere information the loss 
is so slight that it may be disregarded, but in the 
case of great prose writers like Herodotus, Thucydides 
or Demosthenes, like Tacitus or Cicero, it becomes 
very serious indeed. In poetry the loss in translation is 
not only much greater than in prose but it is so far- 
reaching that many good judges regard the adequate 
translation of poetry as an almost impossible feat. 
Without going to this extreme it may be fairly said 
that many of the beauties of poetry, and much of the 
delicate effect of versification disappear in the passage 
from one language to another and we can only accept 
the poem in its changed form as a last resource, which 
is no doubt far better than nothing. It must of course 
be understood that what has just been said does not 
apply to those great books founded on the ideas 
expressed in the poetry of another language which are 
miscalled translation but which are in reality new, 
creative and splendid works of imagination and style, 
quite independent in the adopted language, like the 
English Bible and FitzGerald's rendering of Omar 
Khayyam. Moreover the assertion that translations 
demonstrate the needlessness of studying Greek and 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 79 

Latin proves too much. For if it is sound it would 
make equally futile the study of any language, native 
or foreign, except for the purposes of very restricted 
conversation. 

I have endeavored within the inexorable limits which 
time imposes to make replication of a general charac- 
ter to the objections most usually made against classi- 
cal studies in our schools and universities. Let me 
now with all possible brevity try to give some of the 
aflfirmative arguments which can be made in their 
behalf. I will begin by quoting the plea made recently 
by certain distinguished men in England in behalf of 
the maintenance of classical studies, for in England 
there is the same movement against them as in the 
United States. I take it from an admirable article by 
Professor Moore, published in the Harvard Graduates 
Magazine last December. Speaking of the signers of 
this public letter Professor Moore says: 

"The Hst includes Lord Bryce, Lord Cromer, Lord 
Curzon, Walter Leaf, Sir Wilham Osier, H. A. L. Fisher, 
Sir G. 0. Trevelyan, Sir Archibald Geikie, the Bishop of 
Oxford, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, all known to 
Americans. Every lover of the classics will be glad to take 
as his creed their statement, a portion of which is here 
quoted : 

" 'It is our conviction that the nation requires scientific 
method and a belief in mental training, even more than 
physical science, and that~the former is by no means identi- 
cal with the latter. We might enthrone physical science 
in all our schools without acquiring as a nation what we 
most need, the persuasion that knowledge is essential to 



80 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

progress, and that it has to be acquired by the cultivation 
of the faculty of independent reflection, which implies the 
power of selecting, combining and testing the essential 
facts of the subject in hand. This scientific method is not 
the peculiar property of physical science: all good work 
in all studies is based upon it; it is indispensable to law, 
history, classics, politics, and all branches of knowledge 
rightly understood. What we want is scientific method in 
all the branches of an education which will develop human 
faculty and the power of thinking clearly to the highest 
possible degree. 

" 'In this education we believe that the study of Greece 
and Rome must always have a large part, because our 
whole civilization is rooted in the history of these peoples, 
and v/ithout knowledge of them cannot be properly under- 
stood. The small city communities of Greece created the 
intellectual life of Europe. In their literature we find 
models of thought and expression, and meet the subtle and 
powerful personalities who originated for Europe all forms 
of poetry, history and philosophy, and even physical 
science itself, no less than the ideal of freedom and the 
conception of a self-governing democracy ; while the student 
is introduced to the great problems of thought and life at 
their springs, before he follows them through the wider but 
more confused currents of the modern world. Nor can it 
be right that the educated citizens of a great empire should 
remain ignorant of the first state that met the problem of 
uniting in a contented and prosperous commonwealth 
nations differing in race, temper, and culture, and which has 
left so deep a mark on the language, law and political con- 
ceptions of Europe. Some knowledge of Latin is indis- 
pensable for the intelligent study of any one of these things, 
and even for the intelligent use of our own language. 
Greece and Rome afford us unique instances, the one of 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 81 

creative and critical intelligence, the other of constructive 
statesmanship. Nor can we afford to neglect the noble 
precepts and shining examples of patriotism with which 
their history abounds.' " 

The signers of this letter lay emphasis on the effort 
to "enthrone physical science" in all the schools, and 
that is the precise effort which is being made here. 
Should this plan succeed there would be no brother 
suffered near that throne, w^hereas the classics ask only 
their place in the sun and would never exclude any 
other study which leads to learning and knowledge. 
No one can have a deeper or more reverential respect 
for the higher sciences in all forms than I. No one can 
more admire than I the unselfish devotion to the 
research which, unglorified and almost unrewarded, 
slowly amasses the obscure facts from which the hand 
of genius will one day pluck forth the brilliant dis- 
covery which will help and serve and protect man- 
kind. And yet, notwithstanding that all this is true, I 
cannot but believe that to the average boy — mark, the 
"average" boy — it is as profitable to have r^ead Virgil 
and at least caught a glimpse of the battles on the 
Trojan Plain and of the wanderings of Odysseus as to 
be instructed in the "Hereditary Hair Lengths in 
Guinea Pigs" or in the "Anatomy and Development of 
the Posterior Lymph Hearts of the Turtle." 

But it is tp be remembered that the higher sciences 
are not what the average man thinks of when he speaks 
of science. Nothing can be nobler, more elevating, 
more spiritually enlarging than astronomy, the contem- 



82 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

plation of the stars and interstellar spaces or even of 
our own little satellite, 

"The moon, whose orb 
Through optic glass the Tuscan Artist views 
At ev'ning from the top of Fesole, 
Or in Valdarno to descry new lands, 
Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe." 

Here we have the first classical scholar of his time in 
words of imperishable beauty acclaiming the labors of 
one of the pioneers of science. Milton at least saw no 
reason for shutting up one field of learning because 
another lay beside it. As of astronomy, so the like may 
be said of geology, of biology, of the studies of plants 
and animals whence Darwin and his predecessors and 
successors drew the doctrines and theories of evolution, 
which have so served and enlightened mankind. But 
these are not the sciences which are thought of when 
the classics are decried. It is applied science which is 
in the minds of most men when they use the word. 
To the mass of mankind science means the steam 
engine and the telegraph, the telephone, the dynamo 
and the motor car, wireless telegraphy and aeroplanes. 
It also means the submarine, the poisonous gas, the 
high explosives and all the new devices for the sudden 
obliteration of human lives. No one would think of 
belittling the value and helpfulness of these wonderful 
inventions which have beneficent purposes. But they 
all minister to physical comfort. They leave the soul 
of man untouched. The spirit of man, that which is 



I 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 83 

highest in him, is not lifted up and strengthened by an 
automobile, or a traction engine, or even by an incan- 
descent electric lamp. But the thoughts of men, of the 
philosophers, the moralists and the preachers of relig- 
ion, of artists and architects, of the dramatists, the 
singers and the poets, whether conveyed to us in paint- 
ings, statues and buildings, or in books, are the real 
forces which have moved the world. Applied science 
and ingenious invention can change and have changed 
environment and have altered the scale of living and 
modes of life. But it is human thought and human 
imagination which have led men to the heights of 
intellectual and spiritual achievement. As Napoleon 
said, it is imagination which rules the world in the end, 
not the inventive faculty or the ability to make money. 
Rome developed every comfort, every luxury, every 
physical advantage which the wit of man at that time, 
could devise and which the wealth of the world could 
purchase. But none the less literature faded, art 
declined, the lofty aspirations vanished, barbarian mer- 
cenaries filled the legions and the great empire fell and 
carried civilization down with it into hopeless ruin. 
Physical luxury and piled-up wealth had reached the 
highest point ever attained, but they could not save 
Rome because the Roman spirit was dead. In our 
mania for quickenmg the work and pleasures of life 
and rendering it more comfortable and luxurious let us 
not forget that the vital principle without which all 
these things are dust and ashes is to be found else- 
where, in the books where the thought, the soaring 



84 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

aspirations, the imaginings of men are stored up for 
the guidance and the hope of succeeding generations. 
In the old classical curriculum, to take a concrete 
illustration, boys at a very early period and at the most 
impressionable age heard the story of Leonidas and 
Thermopylse; they knew what was done at Marathon 
and Salamis; they had read of the death of Epaminon- 
das; they realized that Greeks had died to save their 
civilization from the tyranny of the Orient. Passmg 
from Greece to Rome they came to that larger patriot- 
ism, that devotion to the "Patria," to the country, 
which has been the inheritance of all Western civiliza- 
tion. It mattered not whether the old legends were 
true or false, the boys of the elder day before they had 
reached their teens were familiar with Curtius jumping 
into the gulf, Scaevola thrusting his hand into the 
flame, Regulus returning to Carthage; most admired of 
all, Horatius at the bridge, and they recited vigorously 
the words which Macaulay put into the hero's mouth : 

"And how can man die better 
Than facing fearful odds 
For the ashes of his fathers 
And the temples of his Gods." 

Some boys whom I knew read a little Herodotus in the 
volume of selections in which they were prepared for 
college and there they found this sentence: 

" 'H/jLeas aracna^tiv xp^ovkari ev re tu> aXKct} Kaipio /cat 8r] Kal ev 
T^JSe Trepi Tou oKorepos rjixeo^v TrXeoj dyadarrivTraTpida epjaaeraL.' 

These are the words of Aristides to his especial enemy 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 85 

Themistocles on the eve of the battle of Salamis. 
Roughly translated they mean : "It is more becoming at 
any time and more particularly now that we should 
show which one of us shall best serve our country." 
Within the last three months this simple sentence has 
seemed to me not inapplicable as a rule of conduct. 
I look with wonder and admiration at the filaments of 
the radio station climbing up toward the skies and 
take great satisfaction in the comfort of an automobile, 
but I find in neither the inspiration which breathes 
from this passage written down by a Greek historian 
born nearly twenty-five hundred years ago. To the 
boys who had all these stories and sentences drilled 
into them the result can be summed up in Addison's 
line — 

"Thy life is not thine own when Rome demands it." 

With this idea the minds of the boys became thor- 
oughly familiar. That the individual life was to be 
sacrificed to that of the nation, that it was every man's 
duty to offer his life for his country if the need came, 
was regarded as a truism and a commonplace, as a 
matter of course. It is well to have this conception of 
duty and patriotism looked upon as a matter of course, 
as something not to be disputed, and there can be no 
doubt that the early saturation of the boyish mind 
with the classics had much to do with this outcome. 
They knew of course that the Romans were in constant 
wars, that they brought home prisoners taken in battle 



86 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

and conquest and turned them into slaves as the 
Germans are doing now. They understood that Roman 
rule was always efficient, often harsh, sometimes cor- 
rupt, although it was not guilty of systematic, organ- 
ized and wholly wanton cruelty and barbarism. These 
things might all be true but the final and deep impres- 
sion left by the classics on a boy's mind was of courage, 
fighting ability, a capacity for magnanimous deeds, and 
above all and more profound than all others was the 
classical conception of a patriotism ready always to 
sacrifice self and life for the country. Hence comes 
my reason for saying at the beginning that the con- 
nection between modes of education and the concep- 
tions of maturity and the conduct of life is neither fan- 
ciful nor strained. This boyish experience is merely an 
illustration in a small way of the manner in which the 
classics have acted and reacted upon character and 
impulses at an early age. The proposition holds true 
on a far larger field. From the days of Plato and 
Aristotle, whose influence has been deeply felt for 
more than two thousand years, the philosophers, the 
historians, the poets, the orators, the dramatists, the 
jurists and lawmakers of Greece and Rome have moved 
and often guided the highest intelligences of civiliza- 
tion and have impressed themselves profoundly upon 
the thought and imagination of the world. 

That word imagination brings me to my last and, 
it seems to me, to the one all-sufficient argument for 
giving to the classics an ample space in any scheme of 
education, especially if the education thus given ven- 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 87 

tures to prefix to itself the word "higher." We may or 
may not agree with the Christian pessimist that "The 
world is very evil," but there can be no doubt that it 
would be wholly intolerable if man was destitute of 
imagination, unable to enjoy aught but the satisfaction 
of animal needs and appetites and utterly incapable 
of the creation of other worlds in which to find refuge 
from this one. For a race so cursed there would be no 
beauties in nature, none in the sun and moon and stars 
or in earth and ocean. There would be no beauties of 
art, for there would be no art. There would be no 
laughter, for humor cannot exist without imagination, 
and there would be no tears except those extorted by 
physical anguish. 

The earliest craving of man as we catch sight of him 
at the dawn of history or among the tribes surviving in 
primitive condition is for something which will appeal 
to his imagination. He hungers for the fictitious and 
the unreal and for the promise of a happiness after 
death which this world apparently can never give. He 
listens to the story-teller, he constructs intricate super- 
stitions, he weaves from natural phenomena a mythol- 
ogy and a theology which suit his longings and his 
fancy, while his spoken, his only literature is poetry 
and not prose. As the imagination is keenest in a 
child, so is it strongest in the primitive man. Reason 
comes later and dulls imagination, brings it fortunately 
within bounds, but imagination never dies and it cries 
out for gratification from the newsboy spelling over 
the story of crime and detectives in the newspaper to 



88 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

the lover of poetry borne away by a few golden lines 
of Sappho to 

"The sprinkled isles, 
Lily on lily that o'erlace the sea," 

or shivering with Villon in medieval Paris over lost 
hopes and the miseries of a misspent life. 

The works of imagination, upon which the soul 
depends and which sustain the spiritual life of man, 
are found in all the forms of art that have survived, 
in the temple and the cathedral, in the statue and the 
picture. But the great mass of the treasures of the 
imagination are the creations of the poet, the maker 
and singer ; of the dramatist and the teller of tales, and 
these are all stored in books and are called literature. 
A very large part of the literature of the world is com- 
posed of that which we have inherited from Greece 
and Rome. Mr. Watts-Dunton divides poetic imagi- 
nation into two classes: that of absolute dramatic 
vision unconditioned by the personal or lyrical im- 
pulses of the poet, and that of relative dramatic vision 
which is more or less conditioned by the poet's personal 
or lyrical impulse. In the first class he puts ^Eschylus, 
Sophocles, Shakespeare and Homer, and gives as exam- 
ples of the second class Pindar, Dante and Milton; 
Sappho, Heine and Shelley. I cite this passage from 
a distinguished critic merely to show that to whatever 
heights you ascend in literature the Greeks are always 
there. Literature is one of the greatest forces in the 
world and always has been and always will be so. 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 89 

It comes to us with open hand, offering us knowledge, 
spii'itual inspiration, the vast world created by human 
imagination, laughter and tears, happiness, sympathy, 
enjoyment, forge tfulness. Over a large part of this 
spacious kingdom of the mind rule Greece and Rome. 
Are we to shut that fair region off and refuse to boys 
and girls even the opportunity to enter it? Is it not 
wiser, as well as more just to them, at least to put into 
their hands the key which opens the gates of the 
enchanted garden to use or not m later days as they 
may see fit? 

Even as I make the inquiry I hear the eternal ques- 
tion in reply. What is the use of it? What indeed is 
the use of poetry at all? If poetry must have a use 
in order to live I might reply: 

"The song that nerves a nation's heart 
Is in itself a deed," 

and that the verses of Rouget de Lisle have meant 
more to France in the past hundred years than many 
useful scientific devices. But this is too narrow a 
ground. Poetry, the drama, literature in all its forms, 
true art of every kind, cannot be discarded or belittled 
unless you are prepared to say that beauty is useless, 
that there is no utility or profit to be found in the 
words of the founders of religions, of saints or apostles, 
of philosophers or moralists; in the marvelous crea- 
tions of the poet, the dramatist or the tale-teller. Such 
an attitude seems incredible and few people dai'e to 



90 VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 

take it openly, although many whose eyes are fixed 
solely on money-making secretly believe in it. But an 
education wholly destitute of literature and of instruc- 
tion in the contents and meaning of literature is of 
course no education at all. It could not really exist 
because the most ordinary human mind conceivable 
would refuse to be deprived of all imaginative pleasures 
and would teach itself. If then we are to have litera- 
ture and art as a part of our education it seems a grave 
mistake to exclude from instruction the languages of 
the two nations which have so largely contributed to 
both. 

If we love knowledge for its own sake, if we would 
have scholarship and cultivation and refined learning 
among us to give a savor and a perfume to life, we can 
hardly omit the classics. After all it was the return to 
the civilization and hterature of Greece and Rome 
which opened to us the treasure-house of modern 
knowledge, and it is well to be grateful if nothing else. 
But I am one of those who think that there is some- 
thing just here which should ever maintain the classics 
among us when we think of what they are and of what 
they did for us of the modern dispensation. When I 
watch the attempt to drive Homer and Virgil out of 
the schools and universities I cannot but recall the 
old, old story of the plant, or grain, or flower, which 
opens the rock to their lucky possessor and discloses the 
high piled treasure and glittering jewels. It was a 
widely diffused tale. It is found in the Bible, in the 
Smiris; in the Orient as the Schamir or stone of knowl- 



VALUE OF THE CLASSICS 91 

edge; in Latin as the Saxifraga, and in the Arabian 
Nights as the sesame of the Forty Thieves. In the 
Middle Ages the shepherd strikes the staff, in which is 
the magic flower, against the hillside and the rocks 
open. He enters and finds the Princess who bids him 
take gold to his fill. He does so and as he turns to go 
the Princess says, "Forget not the best." She means 
his staff. He merely takes more gold and as he goes 
the mountain walls close upon him and crush him. 
Usually the charm is a flower, a pale blue flower — 

"The blue flower, which Bramins say — 
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise," 

and when the treasure-finder turns away, loaded with 
gold, the flower cries, "Forget-me-not." 
In the plentitude of our present knowledge, so slight 
compared to the vast unknown, so ample if contrasted 
only with what has gone before in our brief history, 
when we leave the treasure-house, where all these riches 
of the mind are heaped up before us, let us not forget 
the noble languages to which we owe not only all the 
learning of the ancients and the reopening of the road 
which has brought us to where we are to-day, but so 
much of the poetry and the beauty by which we ai'e 
enabled to see visions and to dream dreams. 

Then let us recall the words of another great poet of 
another race, who says to us, 

"Where there is no vision the people perish." 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS^ 

Not long since I received a copy of a magazine of 
which I had never heard before — a reflection, no doubt, 
upon me and not upon the magazine. It seemed to be 
a serious and well-edited publication, and turning over 
the pages I came upon a critical notice of a book, 
entitled "War Addresses," which I had lately published. 
The notice was very kindly in tone, and when for 
nearly forty years one has been exposed to criticisms 
in large numbers, both literary and political, one 
becomes very grateful for kindness, even when it is 
condescending and too indifferent to its subject to 
avoid mispresenting the author. My copy of the mag- 
azine has gone the way of the endless printed pages 
which come to a man in public life, but there was one 
sentence in the notice which secured a place in my 
memory and subsequently suggested a train of thought 
which finally finds expression here. 

The critic disposed in wholesale fashion of some of 
the addresses, which may be sufficiently defined as 
"occasional," by saying that they were of the usual 
kind, very well in their w^ay, with skilfully distributed 
"familiar quotations." These last words in quotation 

* This essay appeared in Scribner's Magazine for January, 
1919. It was written in March, 1918, at the time of the great 
German attack which forced the British line back almost to Amiens. 
I mention this to explain the allusion in the second paragraph. 

92 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 93 

marks were those which arrested my attention and, as 
they recurred to me later, lifted from my mind for a 
moment the burden of sad and anxious thoughts 
absorbed by the distress of the hour, by the perils and 
trials besetting my country which threatened those 
principles of freedom and civilization that alone make 
hfe worth having. It was evident that the critic in 
using the words I have quoted proceeded upon the not 
uncommon assumption that men in public life or those 
who are often called upon to speak m public are in the 
habit of taking down their Bartlett, or some similar 
collection, and searching through its pages for quota- 
tions with which to ornament their utterances, thus 
violating a fundamental rule of architecture, which 
applies equally to speech, that you may ornament your 
construction but must never construct your ornament. 
A universal negative is not only dangerous but is gen- 
erally impossible, and yet, practically speaking, I doubt 
if this method of putting quotations into speeches or 
writings is ever followed by any one. Of course, in 
saying this I exclude the citation of authorities as in 
a legal argument or in histories, as well as extracts from 
an author whose books are the subject of a critical 
study and examination. My statement is confined to 
quotations used by a writer or speaker to point a moral 
or to adorn the expression of his own thought in better 
words than he can furnish himself. Naturally the 
thought suggests the quotation, and its rarity or famil- 
iarity depends upon the memory and the range of read- 
ing of the speaker or writer. As the most famihar 



94 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

words are the most easily remembered and come within 
the narrowest vocabulary, so the most familiar quota- 
tions, as their very name implies, are those most com- 
monly used. But they are not sought for, although 
they are frequently verified, as they ought always to be, 
because the old Scotchman was quite right when on 
his death-bed he whispered to his son : "Always verify 
your quotations." 

My first impression when I read my critic's censure 
was of the erroneous theory upon which it was obvi- 
ously based, that men searched a dictionary of quota- 
tions to find suitable adornments for their writing or 
their speech. My next was as to how far the implied 
criticism that I indulged in too many familiar quota- 
tions was justified. I rather wondered that my critic, 
so avowedly an expert in the familiarity of quotations, 
did not remind me of Steele's remark that ''There is 
nothing so pedantic as many quotations." I assume 
that he knew the sentence, but he probably shrank 
from it as too "familiar," and also, perhaps, because he 
was aware that Steele himself, or Addison as the case 
might be, put some familiar classical quotation at the 
head of every Tatler and did not hesitate to sprinkle 
other quotations here and there in the text. 

Let me say in answer to the implied criticism that I 
confess to a fondness, perhaps it is a weakness, for an 
apt quotation. It seems to me to adorn or light up a 
sentence provided it is wise or beautiful or humorous 
as well as fitting. It is a buttress to an argument, it 
sharpens a point, it adds luster to a page. If I can 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 95 

express a thought of mine in the language of Shake- 
speare, the supreme master of English, how much bet- 
ter for my reader or my hearer than to leave him alone 
with my words, so poor and dim compared to the radi- 
ance of the great poet and thinker. Perhaps I too far 
give way to my fancy in this respect, but I know how 
much I like the art of quotation in others, and I also 
feel that if I err I at least sin in good company. There 
is first of all Sir Walter Scott, unrivaled in quotations 
which he dearly loved to use. I think he surpassed all 
others in the art, because when even his wide and curi- 
ous reading and his tenacious memory failed to give 
what he desired he made his quotations himself. As 
Labouchere said of his stories: "They might not be 
true but they were certainly new, for I made them all 
myself." There you can find them written at the head 
of Sir Walter's chapters, appropriate, of course, because 
devised for that especial purpose and attributed to an 
"Old Play," an "Old Ballad," or to that fertile and 
charming author "Anonymous." Think of a novelist 
who, lacking a quotation to introduce a chapter, scrib- 
bled on his manuscript such lines as these: 

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! 
To all the sensual world proclaim. 
One crowded hour of glorious life 
Is worth an age without a name." 

— "Anonymous." 
("Old Mortality," chapter XXVI.) ^ 

^The numbering of the chapters in "Old Mortality" varies in 
different editions. In some editions the quotation cited precedea 
chapter XXI. See note, p. 110. 



96 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

Is it any the worse because it became what Scott pre- 
tended it to be, a "familiar" quotation, so familiar that 
hundreds have repeated the splendid words without 
even knowing their origin? I looked back to the earliest 
chapters of the novel, and found the first five garnished 
with quotations from Burns, Prior, Swift, and Shake- 
speare, and then memory remaining mute invention 
steps in and we have lines from our deceptive friend 
an "Old Ballad." What lover of literature would quar- 
rel with either the real or the invented quotations — 
they all gleam upon the page and open the coming 
chapter with a strain of music. Think, too, for a 
moment of some of the writers who still delight the 
world and who were much given to quotation, apt, 
ingenious, and suggestive. Montaigne, Lamb, Hazlitt, 
Matthew Arnold, Macaulay, Augustine Birrell, Lowell, 
Emerson, great masters all in the dehcate and charming 
art of quotation, occur at once to one's mind. I do not 
extend the list, for these are enough to show what a 
goodly company are those who aptly quote, nor do I 
include Burton because his book is largely made up of 
far-fetched and curio'us extracts from unread folios; 
nor Sterne because he simply robbed Burton and thus 
helped himself to produce one of the great books of 
English literature. 

These comforting reflections upon my fellow sinners 
in a love for quotations led me to the book in which 
my failing had not escaped my keen-eyed critic, and I 
determined to see just how serious the failing was in 
that particular case. I found that in the volume of 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 97 

three hundred and three pages there were thirty-four 
quotations — very few in the ten speeches, nearly all ii. 
the eight occasional addresses. They were divided in 
origin as follows: Tennyson, four; Shakespeare, 
Emerson, and Horace, three each; Macaulay, Lowell, 
Byron, and Wordsworth, two each; Cicero, Franklin, 
Drinkwater, Keats, the Bible, Patrick Heniy, Addison, 
Rabelais, Whittier, Dickens, Lincoln, Landor, and 
Browning, one each. To my surprise I also found on 
examination that only eleven of these quotations were 
in Bartlett, the largest and best dictionary of quota- 
tions I know. This fact indicates that this valuable 
work of reference was not searched very thoroughly 
for striking passages which might at various points be 
worked into my discourse. But the distribution of my 
quotations shows conclusively the unsoundness of the 
perhaps common notion that any one who speaks in 
public or writes for publication thumbs over a diction- 
ary in order to pluck out some quotable and oft-quoted 
phrase which he can use to advantage. Had I worked 
in this way there would not have been four quotations 
from Tennyson. Not only are Shakespeare and the 
Bible the books which all English-speaking people 
quote most readily and naturally, often without know- 
ing that they are quoting, but there are many poets 
who to me mean far more and are more familiar than 
Tennyson. There are four quotations from Tennyson 
simply because memory found in his poems the lines 
which fitted and lighted up the thought I was trying 
to express. And that is the way that quotations for 



98 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

decorative or illuminating purposes find their way into 
speech or writing. As a proof of the same truth it will 
be noticed that there is no research visible, for zny 
quotations were all from famous or familiar authors 
except possibly the stanzas by Mr. Drinkwater, a young 
English poet not yet as well known as he deserves to 
be. Still less can they be accused of pedantry, which 
implies a needless display of learning as well as 
unsuitability to the time, the place, the subject, or the 
company. Whatever else may be said of them, the 
quotations made in my little volume were all appro- 
priate to the subject and all, I think, sufficiently apt. 
They are certainly not recondite. They are from books 
which all educated persons may be supposed to have 
read. Yet I confess I should have hked to have had my 
critic place the nameless ones for me when he read 
them, without looking them up, using only his mem- 
ory for identification. I should be particularly pleased 
if he would place for me the sentence from Rabelais 
which was imbedded in my remembrance but ■^hich 
I had not the patience to delve for so as to be able to 
give chapter and verse. 

I have used myself too long as an illustration of my 
theme which is in the nature of a protest against the 
patronizing, down-looking manner in which superior 
persons and perhaps other and better people are wont 
to refer in print and in speech to "familiar quotations," 
with an emphasis upon the adjective as if familiarity in 
literature was the equivalent of inferiority. I feel 
inclined to begin by repeating to those who hold such 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 99 

opinions Armado's words to Moth: "Define, define, 
well-educated infant." 

Do you mean by "familiar" anything to be found in 
the dictionaries of quotations which bear that name, 
Bartlett, for example, with its thousand and fifty-four 
pages? It is an invaluable work for the task of verifi- 
cation, very precious in disclosing the authors and 
origins of verse and of sentences which drift about in 
our memories but which have parted their moormgs. 
Full of information, too, are such patient compilations. 
There, for instance, you will leani who wrote the 
lines — 

"The aspiring youth, that fired the Ephesian dome. 
Outlives in fame the pious fool that rais'd it," 

which I have heard wrongly attributed oftener than 
any equally familiar verses. Bartlett fails to give us 
the name of the "aspiring youth," and I should like 
to hear one of those who scorn the "familiar" quotation 
tell us without examination of authorities who the 
aspiring youth was and whether the architect and the 
"pious fool" were one and the same person. This, by 
way of digression, merely illustrates the value of such 
books as the work of Bartlett and points to the grati- 
tude we ought to feel to those whose industry and 
scholarship have produced them. But with all their 
virtues their title is misleading. I will venture the as- 
sertion that, while some of the quotations in the col- 
lections are known to every one and all probably to 



100 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

some one, and while most of them are occasionally met 
with, perhaps, in speech or writing, the majority of 
extracts are wholly unfamiliar to most of those, even 
if well-read persons, who use the book for reference. 
It is best that it should be so and could not well be 
otherwise, for the poet or writer who is the close friend 
of one man may have only a bowing acquaintance 
with another, and both must be able to find their 
favorite in the dictionary. There is a certain body 
of quotations, chiefly Biblical and Shakespearian, 
many of them now integral parts of the language, and 
some simple and widely popular poems which may 
be said undoubtedlj^ to be familiar to everybody. But 
compared to the total number contained in the dic- 
tionary they form but a small percentage. Therefore 
''familiar," as used by the book of reference, is rela- 
tive, and to say that a quotation which is to be found 
in such a work is to be deemed absolutely familiar is 
an assertion not to be sustained. 

I fear that I must quote in order to give the best 
definition I know if I attempt to establish a true stand- 
ard of familiarity. It is to be found in "Henry V," 
where the King says: 

"Then shall our names, 
Familiar in his mouth as household words." 

There we have an admirable definition covering all the 
really popular and familiar quotations of the dictionary 
and nothing else, and testing familiarity by the little 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 101 

phrases and jests which are peculiar to the family 
where they have been born and grown up, but which 
never travel beyond the household limits. If this 
Shakespearian definition gives a good standard, and 
there can be no doubt of the extreme familiarity which 
it implies, the question arises whether it also means 
that familiarity connotes inferiority and leaves a mark 
upon an author's verse or prose which directs avoid- 
ance. Some persons — many, perhaps, like my friendly 
critic — appear to think so. Yet broadly speaking I 
believe the very reverse to be the truth. The books 
which have lasted through the centuries and are most 
familiar are, on the whole, the best books and the great- 
est literature. Not only do they command the admira- 
tion and the study of all educated men and women, but 
their words, their characters, their stories have passed 
into the popular consciousness, into the current 
thought and daily language of countless millions who 
have never read, perhaps never heard of, the books. 
The tale of the ''Odyssey," the names of Hector and 
Achilles, the figures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, 
the characters of Christian and Valiant- for-Truth, of 
Pantagruel and Panurge, of Hamlet and Faust, the 
visions of Dante, are household words in homes where 
perhaps the books themselves have never entered. 
They have a steadier and stronger life than even the 
folk-tales, the folk-songs, or the stories of fairies and 
giants. Nothing else is so familiar, and yet Homer and 
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Bunyan, Rabelais, Goethe, 
and Dante are, on the whole, the greatest, or among 



102 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

the very greatest, names in the world's literature. 
There is much in some familiar literature which is com- 
monplace, mediocre, and even worthless, but let the 
winnowing winds of time blow upon it and the chaff 
will vanish. Such things never become household 
words in any enduring sense. The greatest and best- 
known authors in recorded history are, on the whole, 
the best, and the same is true of the poems which are 
to be found in all anthologies. They vary in merit, 
no doubt, but among them are many of the best poems 
and verses in literature. No matter how hackneyed, 
to use the most depreciating word, no matter how 
familiar, great literature remains great. "What began 
best can't end worst." 

Let us take two or three examples in our own lan- 
guage. Hamlet's soliloquy beginning, "To be or not to 
be," is probably as familiar as is possible for any words 
not in the Bible, and has certainly been declaimed and 
recited oftener than any others, from the boy at school 
to the great actor on the stage. Has its power, its phi- 
losophy, its fineness of thought and diction, its soaring 
imagination been thereby in any degree impaired? 
Where could one turn more surely at the chosen 
moment for a noble quotation? Again, no lines in 
Shakespeare are probably more universally familiar 
than Portia's speech beginning : "The quality of mercy 
is not strained." Has use at all lessened its exquisite 
beauty? 

Descend in the scale of genius. Like Wolfe on the 
eve of the battle upon the plains of Abraham, boys and 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 103 

girls, men and women, have been repeating for more 
than a century the ''Elegy in a Country Church Yard." 
It might be described in the words of the young man, 
overheard by Airs. Kemble at the theater, who 
remarked of "Hamlet" "that it seemed made up of 
quotations." Does all this familiarity in any way affect 
its beauties, the charm of the verse, the perfection in 
the choice of words, the soft twilight of the picture and 
the thoughts? There is but one possible answer to such 
a question. 

Or take a bit of prose, the parting of Mr. Valiant-for- 
Truth : "My sword I give to him that shall succeed me 
in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that 
can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be 
a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now 
will be my rewarder. When the day that he must go 
hence was come, many accompanied him to the river- 
side, into which, as he went he said: 'Death, where is 
thy sting?' And as he went down deeper, he said: 
'Grave, where is thy victory?' So he passed over, and 
all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side." 

Examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but do 
not these four most familiar quotations, which I have 
taken haphazard as they came into my mind, prove 
sufficiently that to make familiarity the equivalent of 
inferiority and an objection to the use of such quota- 
tions is an absurdity on its face. Is it not rather true 
that even if one were to repeat every morning the vari- 
ous lines I have quoted, so doing would improve one's 
taste and one's English, fill the mind with noble and 



104 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

gracious images, and cast a pleasant light across a 
clouded, dusty, or uneventful day? 

In his essay entitled "The Study of Poetry," 
Matthew Arnold says that there can be no more useful 
help in determinmg what is the best poetry than to 
have always in mind lines or expressions of the great 
masters. They may be very dissimilar from the poetry 
we are considering at the moment, ''but if we have any 
tact we shall find them ... an infallible touchstone 
for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic 
qualities." He then gives quotations from Homer, 
Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, any one of which 
will furnish the test of which he has been speaking. 
The supreme qualities which makes the lines Arnold 
quotes true touchstones of poetic excellence do not 
concern us here. The single point to which I wish to 
call attention is that with one or two exceptions these 
lines of supreme excellence are all familiar, most of 
them extremely so. 

For example, from Homer he takes a line from the 
words of Achilles to Priam, known to every one who 
reads the "Iliad" either in the original or in a trans- 
lation : 

" Kttt (re yepov, to irplv [lep aKobojxtv oX^lov etvai. ^ 

From Dante "that incomparable line and a half, 
Ugolino's tremendous words" in the Tower of Famine: 

^"Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast as we hear, 
happy."— /iwd XXIV, 543. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 105 

"lo no piangeva; si dentro impietrai. 
Piangevan elli . . ." ^ 

And again "the simple, but perfect, single line" : 
"In la sua voluntade e nostra pace." ^ 

From Shakespeare, three oft-repeated lines from Henry 
IV's wonderful soliloquy about sleep, and then Ham- 
let's dying words to Horatio, unsurpassed in beauty in 
any language: 

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, 
Absent thee from felicity awhile. 
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain 
To tell my story ..." 

From Milton four lines from the great description of 
the fallen archangel, ending, "and care sat on his faded 
cheek," and then these two lines: 

"And courage never to submit or yield 
And what is else not to be overcome . . ." 

More than once Arnold quotes again as a final test the 
single lines — 

"In la sua voluntade e nostra pace" 

and 

"Absent thee from felicity awhile." 

^ "I wailed not, so of stone I grew within; they wailed." — Injcrno, 
XXXIII, 39, 40. 
'"In his will is our peace." — Paradise, III, 85. 



106 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

These are all lines and passages chosen by a great critic, 
himself a poet, as touchstones of the highest poetic 
quality, and they are all familiar, some, as I have said, 
very familiar indeed. Matthew Arnold, then, finds 
his examples of the noblest verse among the familiar 
quotations. Does this familiarity diminish their value 
or lessen their perfection of form or their beauty of 
thought? Surely not. If Matthew Arnold could use 
familiar quotations in this way and find in them the 
very highest qualities of the greatest poetry, it is, per- 
haps, weU for critics and other persons also to pause 
before they speak contemptuously of a quotation 
because it is "familiar." 

Here as in most cases there must, of course, be dis- 
crimination, and it is always perilous to regard any 
adjective as absolute and treat it as if it were a mathe- 
matical formula. There are the familiar quotations of 
the day, for example, the current slang, the political 
catchword, the refrain of the music-hall song which 
every one knows, from the boy in the street upward. 
They "strut and fret their hour upon the stage and 
then are heard no more." These are for the moment 
well-known quotations, but not familiar in the true 
sense because they have familiarity only for the day 
that is passing over them. A few years elapse and they 
are as lost as if they had never been. The same may 
be said of those taken from some verse-maker, some 
poet, perhaps, who caught the ear of his contempo- 
raries and furnished them with quotations which are 
strangers to their children. Such quotations as these 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 107 

have the life of a generation of men and then disappear, 
never attaining to the dignity of being .really familiar 
in the large sense. One has but to look over some old 
anthologies to learn this truth by observing the sparse 
relics of minor poets, once well known to their little 
groups of admirers and perhaps even beyond, now 
mown down by the scythe of time and lying side by 
side quite lifeless, remembered only by the old who 
will soon follow theni to oblivion. 

The quotation worthy of the high title of "familiar" 
must have stood the test of time and passed unhurt 
through the shifting tastes and fashions of centuries. 
In its lofty or in its humble way it must show that, like 
Shakespeare, it "was not for an age, but for all time." 
I use the word "humble" because the rhymes of child- 
hood, of the nursery, fulfil the requirement of age in a 
quotation worthy to be called familiar. Their intrin- 
sic, their abstract merits may appear slight, they may 
even seem to be sheer nonsense, but they are passed on 
by mothers and nurses and by the children themselves 
from generation to generation. We may be assured 
that they would not thus have lived and prospered if 
they had not possessed some quality, however slender, 
of genuine worth, of real humor or imagination, which 
gave them permanence. 

Then there are the popular sayings, the folk-tales 
and ballads and the songs of the people with an ances- 
try lost in the mists of antiquity, which, stored only in 
the human memory and kept alive only by human lips, 
have come down across the centuries with their endless 



108 FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

variants until at last they have been gathered up by the 
collector and the antiquarian and made safe from 
oblivion by print and paper. These tales and ballads 
and proverbs are often rude in form and expression, 
but no curious inquiry is needed to explain their long 
life and lasting familiarity. In them you find wit and 
wisdom, sparks struck from the hard flints of experi- 
ence by men and women struggling unknown through 
what we call life. In this literature of humanity from 
primitive man onward you come upon the visions of 
the race, the imagination which takes man out of him- 
self, which brings him laughter and tears, which makes 
him forget for a moment the trials he encounters and 
the sorrows he must bear. There we read the first 
efforts of the race to explain the universe, there we find 
the embodiment of the natural phenomena in myths 
and fables, the personification of the planets and the 
stars and behind them all the force and energy of the 
simplest emotions set forth by unsophisticated minds 
with imaginations unfettered by science and neither 
dulled nor made timid by the knowledge yet to come. 
Is it any wonder that the literature reaching back to 
the infancy of humanity is dear to the hearts of men 
and is familiar in their mouths as household words? 
Would we have it otherwise? Are the quotations from 
folk-lore and ballads and songs in any degree harmed 
by the familiarity which is the badge at once of their 
worth and their pedigree? 

Finally we come to tiie familiar quotations which are 
the work of the great masters, the poets or makers, the 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 109 

tale-tellers, the creators, the orators, and the essayists 
aud philosophers whose thought has built up civiliza- 
tion and ruled mankind. Their familiarity is due to 
their power, their depth of meaning, to their beauty 
or their loveliness, to their wit and wisdom and humor, 
and in very large measure to their perfection of form. 
That they are familiar in the thoughts and speech of 
men is not only a proof of their high excellence but is 
an element of hope for the future of the race which has 
looked dark enough in these later years. Far from 
being a mark of inferiority, familiarity is here the sure 
proof of great qualities, so sure that there is no gain- 
saying the proposition that the oftener the celebrated 
passages from the great masters of thought and litera- 
ture are quoted the better it is for all men and for the 
preservation of the social fabric which they have pain- 
fully built up. 

Familiar quotations from the three sources which 
furnish them and which I have tried to indicate vary as 
widely as possible in thought, in intrinsic value, in 
imagery, and in ideas. They range from the apparent 
triviality and even nonsense of the nursery jingles 
through the folk-tales and ballads up to the "flamman- 
tia moenia mundi" of Lucretius and the "fixed fate, 
free-will, foreknowledge absolute" of Milton. The very 
large majority are in verse, and they all have form, 
however rudimentary. The formless never appeals to 
the popular mind or the popular ear. The people at 
large know nothing of quantities or pauses or caesuras, 
of feet or of meters, but they demand a metered line 




no FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 

and also the other great exterior qualities of poetry in 
the true sense, rhythm, melody, harmony, and rhyme 
where rhyme is used. The popular instinct is never 
misled by printing prose to look like verse. They may 
not know why the chopped and changmg lines are not 
verse, but they know very well that they have no music 
in them, and they forget them as easily as the adver- 
tisements which daily flow unheeded past our jaded 
eyes. 

It is a curious fact that the popular instinct and the 
judgment of the tramed critics and of the greatest 
poets alike demand form. The verse form may be 
simple or complex, but form there must be and also 
rhythmic movement and melody in order to charm 
widely and lastingly the children of men. Moreover, 
when we pass beyond the nursery rhymes we find that 
again the people and the poets, the critics and the 
students of literature agree in liking what on the whole 
is best, and so it comes to pass that many of the most 
familiar quotations are from the best literature of all 
languages. We shall do well, therefore, in this connec- 
tion to pay little heed to the popular fallacy that 
"Familiarity breeds contempt." 

While this volume was in the press my attention 
was called to the doubts which had been thrown upon 
the authorship of the famous lines beginning "Sound, 
sound the clarion" which appear at the head of a 
chapter in "Old Mortality." I also learned that the 
question had been discussed at some length in the 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 111 

London Times of a year ago. We know from Lock- 
hart (vol. 5, ed. 1839, p. 145) that Scott was in the 
habit of writing mottos for his chapters himself and 
crediting them to "Old Play" or "Old Ballad." 
"Anonymous" was also another of his words for sign- 
ing his own productions when he used them as a 
quotation. I cannot better state the case than by 
quoting from a letter written to my friend, the Honor- 
able James M. Beck, who kindly permits me to use 
it, by Sir Edmund Gosse, who says: 

The line about "One crowded hour" was discussed very 
fully last summer in (not the Spectator but) the Times Lit- 
erary Supplement, in successive numbers. It was shown 
that the quatrain occurs in a piece published by a very 
obscure writer (I forget his name) earlier than Scott's quo- 
tation appeared. The rest of the poem appeared to be 
beneath contempt. So far as I remember, the author was 
known to Scott, and it seemed to me probable, or at least 
possible, that Scott had thrown off the stanza and given 
it to the author. But I did not take much interest in the 
discussion and for me Scott remains the author of these 
four noble lines. 

I am in thorough accord with all Sir Edmund Gosse 
says and also with Mr. Andrew Lang, who, in his 
"Lyrics and Ballads," not only credits Scott unques- 
tionably with the lines, but says of them (on page 
21): "These four lines contain the very essence of 
Scott's poetry." However they may have strayed into 



m 



112 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 



the verses of some obscure and forgotten poet there 
is to my thinking no more doubt that they were writ- 
ten by Scott than that he was the author of "Marmion" 
and "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT^ 

A tower is fallen, a star is set ! Alas ! Alas ! for Celin. 

The words of lamentation from the old Moorish 
ballad, which in boyhood we used to recite, must, I 
think, have risen to many lips when the world was 
told that Theodore Roosevelt was dead. But whatever 
the phrase the thought was instant and everywhere. 
Variously expressed, you heard it in the crowds about 
the bulletin boards, from the man in the street and the 
man on the railroads, from the farmer in the fields, the 
women in the shops, in the factories, and in the homes. 
The pulpit found in his life a text for sermons. The 
judge on the bench, the child at school, alike paused for 
a moment, conscious of a loss. The cry of sorrow came 
from men and women of all conditions, high and low, 
rich and poor, from the learned and the ignorant, from 
the multitude who had loved and followed him, and 
from those who had opposed and resisted him. The 
newspapf^r<5 iiushed aside the absorbing reports of the 
events of these fateful days and gave pages to the 
man who had died. Flashed beneath the ocean and 
through the air went the announcement of his death, 
and back came a world-wide response from courts 

* An address delivered before the Congress of the United States, 
Sunday, February 9, 1919. 

113 



114 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

and cabinets, from press and people, in other and far- 
distant lands. Through it all ran a golden thread of 
personal feeling which gleams so rarely in the somber 
formalism of public grief. Everywhere the people felt 
in their hearts' that: 



A power was passing from the Earth 
To breathless Nature's dark abyss. 



i 



It would seem that here was a man, a private citizen, 
conspicuous by no ofl&ce, with no glitter of power 
about him, no ability to reward or punish, gone from 
the earthly life, who must have been unusual even 
among the leaders of men, and who thus demands our 
serious consideration. 

This is a thought to be borne in mind to-day. We 
meet to render honor to the dead, to the great American 
whom we mourn. But there is something more to be 
done. We must remember that when History, with 
steady hand and calm eyes, free from the passions of 
the past, comes to make up the final account, she will 
call as her principal witnesses the contemporaries of 
the man or the event awaiting her verdict. Here and 
elsewhere the men and women who knew Theodore 
Roosevelt or who belong to his period will give public 
utterance to their emotions and to their judgments in 
regard to him. This will be part of the record to which 
the historian will turn when our living present has 
become the past, of which it is his duty to write. Thus 
is there a responsibility placed upon each one of us 
who will clearly realize that here, too, is a duty to pos- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 115 

terity, whom we would fain guide to the truth as we 
see it, and to whose hands we commit our share in 
the history of our beloved country — that history so 
much of which was made under his leadership. 

We can not approach Theodore Roosevelt along the 
beaten paths of eulogy or satisfy ourselves with the 
empty civilities of commonplace funereal tributes, for 
he did not make his life journey over main-traveled 
roads, nor was he ever commonplace. Cold and 
pompous formalities would be unsuited to him who 
was devoid of affectation, who was never self-conscious, 
and to whom posturing to draw the public gaze 
seemed not only repellent but vulgar. He had that 
entire simplicity of manners and modes of life which 
is the crowning result of the highest culture and the 
finest nature. Like Cromwell, he would always have 
said: "Paint me as I am." In that spirit, in his spirit 
of devotion to truth's simplicity, I shall try to speak 
of him to-day in the presence of the representatives of 
the great Government of which he was for seven years 
the head. 

The rise of any man from humble or still more from 
sordid beginnings to the heights of success always and 
naturally appeals strongly to the imagination. It 
furnishes a vivid contrast which is as much admired as 
it is readily understood. It still retains the wonder 
which such success awakened in the days of hereditary 
lawgivers and high privileges of birth. Birth and for- 
tune, however, mean much less now than two cen- 
turies ago. To climb from the place of a printer's boy 



116 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

to the highest rank iii science, politics, and diplomacy 
would be far easier to-day than in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, given a genius like Franklin to do it. Moreover 
the real marvel is in the soaring achievement itself, -no 
matter what the origin of the man who comes by "the 
people's unbought grace to rule his native land" and 
who on descending from the official pinnacle still leads 
and influences thousands upon thousands of his fellow 
men. 

Theodore Roosevelt had the good fortune to be born 
of a well-known, long-established family, with every 
facility for education and with an atmosphere of 
patriotism and disinterested service both to country 
and humanity all about him. In his father he had 
before him an example of lofty public spirit, from 
which it would have been difficult to depart. But if the 
work of his ancestors relieved him from the hard 
struggle which meets an unaided man at the outset, he 
also lacked the spur of necessity to prick the sides of 
his intent, in itself no small loss. As a balance to the 
opportunity which was his without labor, he had not 
only the later difficulties which come to him to whom 
fate has been kind at the start; he had also spread 
before him the temptations inseparable from such 
inherited advantages as fell to his lot — temptations 
to a life of sports and pleasure, to lettered ease, to an 
amateur's career in one of the fine arts, perhaps to a 
money-making business, likewise an inheritance, none 
of them easily to be set aside in obedience to the stern 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 117 

rule that the larger and more facile the opportunity 
the greater and more insistent the responsibility. 
How he refused to tread the pleasant paths that opened 
to him on all sides and took the instant way which 
led over the rough road of toil and action his life 
discloses. 

At the beginning, moreover, he had physical diffi- 
culties not lightly to be overcome. He was a delicate 
child, suffering acutely from attacks of asthma. He 
was not a strong boy, was retiring, fond of books, and 
with an intense but solitary devotion to natural his- 
tory. As his health gradually improved he became 
possessed by the belief, although he perhaps did not 
then formulate it, that in the fields of active life a man 
could do that which he willed to do ; and this faith was 
with him to the end. It became very evident when he 
went to Harvard. He made himself an athlete by sheer 
hard work. Hampered by extreme near-sightedness, 
he became none the less a formidable boxer and an 
excellent shot. He stood high in scholarship, but as 
he worked hard, so he played hard, and was popular 
in the university and beloved by his friends. For a 
shy and delicate boy all this meant solid achievement, 
as well as unusual determination and force of will. 
Apparently he took early to heart and carried out to 
fulfilment the noble lines of Clough's Dipsychus: 

In light things 
Prove thou the arms thou long'st to glorify. 
Nor fear to work up from the lowest ranks 



118 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Whence come great Nature's Captains. And high deeds 
Haunt not the fringy edges of the fight, 
But the pell-mell of men. 

When a young man comes out of college he descends 
suddenly from the highest place in a little world to a 
very obscure corner in a great one. It is something of 
a shock, and there is apt to be a chill in the air. Unless 
the young man's life has been planned beforehand and 
a place provided for him by others, which is excep- 
tional, or unless he is fortunate in a strong and domi- 
nating purpose or talent which drives him to science or 
art or some particular profession, he finds himself at 
this period pausing and wondering where he can get a 
grip upon the vast and confused world into which he 
has been plunged. 

It is a trying and only too frequently a disheartening 
experience, this looking for a career, this effort to find 
employment in a huge and hurrying crowd which 
appears to have no use for the newcomer. Roosevelt, 
thus cast forth on his own resources — ^his father, so 
beloved by him, having died two years before — fell to 
work at once, turning to the study of the law, which he 
did not like, and to the completion of a history of the 
War of 1812 which he had begun while still in college. 
With few exceptions, young beginners in the difficult 
art of writing are either too exuberant or too dry. 
Roosevelt said that his book was as dry as an encyclo- 
pedia, thus erring in precisely the direction one would 
not have expected. The book, be it said, was by no 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 119 

means so dry as he thought it, and it had some other 
admirable quaUties, It was clear and thorough, and 
the battles by sea and land, especially the former, 
which involved the armaments and crews, the size and 
speed of the ships engaged in the famous frigate and 
sloop actions, of which we won eleven out of thirteen, 
were given with a minute accuracy never before 
attempted in the accounts of this war, and which made 
the book an authority, a position it holds to this day. 
This was a good deal of sound work for a boy's first 
year out of college. But it did not content Roosevelt. 
Inherited influences and inborn desires made him 
earnest and eager to render some public service. In 
pursuit of this aspiration he joined the Twenty-first 
Assembly District Republican Association of the city 
of New York, for by such machinery all politics were 
carried on in those days. It was not an association 
composed of his normal friends; in fact, the members 
were not only eminently practical persons but they 
were inclined to be rough in their methods. They 
were not dreamers, nor were they laboring under many 
illusions. Roosevelt went among them a complete 
stranger. He differed from them with entire frank- 
ness, concealed nothing, and by his strong and simple 
democratic ways, his intense Americanism, and the 
magical personal attraction which went with him to the 
end, made some devoted friends. One of the younger 
leaders, "Joe" Murray, believed in him, became espe- 
cially attached to him, and so conthiued until death 
separated them. Through Murray's efforts he was 






120 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

elected to the New York Assembly in 1881, and thus 
only one year after leaving college his public career 
began. He was just twenty-three. 

Very few men make an effective State reputation in 
their first year in the lower branch of the State legis- 
lature. I never happened to hear of one who made a 
national reputation in such a body. Roosevelt did 
both. When he left the assembly after three years' 
service he was a national figure, well known, and of 
real importance, and also a delegate at large from the ' 
great State of New York to the Republican national 
convention of 1884, where he played a leading part. 
Energy, ability, and the most entire courage were the 
secret of his extraordinary success. It was a time of 
flagrant corporate influence in the New York Legis- 
lature, of the "Black Horse Cavalry," of a group of 
members who made money by sustaining corporation 
measures or by levying on corporations and capital 
through the familiar artifice of ''strike bills." Roose- 
velt attacked them all openly and aggressively and 
never silently or quietly. He fought for the impeach- 
ment of a judge solely because he believed the judge 
corrupt, which surprised some of his political asso- 
ciates of both parties, there being, as one practical 
thinker observed, "no pohtics m politics." He failed 
to secure the impeachment, but the fight did not fail, 
nor did the people forget it; and despite — perhaps 
because of — the enemies he made, he was twice re- 
elected. He became at the same time a distinct, well- 
defined figure to the American people. He had touched 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 121 

the popular imagination. In this way he performed 
the unexampled feat of leaving the New York Assem- 
bly, which he had entered three years before an 
unknown boy, with a national reputation and with his 
name at least known throughout the United States. 
He was tw^enty-six years old. 

When he left Chicago at the close of the national 
convention in June, 1884, he did not return to New 
York, but went West to the Bad Lands of the Little 
Missouri Valley, where he had purchased a ranch in 
the previous year. The early love of natural history 
which never abated had developed into a passion for 
hunting and for hfe in the open. He had begun in the 
wilds of Maine and then turned to the West and to a 
cattle ranch to gratify both tastes. The life appealed 
to him and he came to love it. He herded and rounded 
up his cattle, he worked as a cow-puncher, only rather 
harder than any of them, and in the intervals he 
hunted and shot big game. He also came in contact 
with men of a new type, rough, sometimes dangerous, 
but always vigorous and often picturesque. With 
them he had the same success as with the practical 
politicians of the Twenty-first Assembly District, 
although they were widely different specimens of man- 
kind. But all alike were human at bottom and so was 
Roosevelt. He argued with them, rode with them, 
camped with them, played and joked with them, but 
was always master of his outfit. They respected him 
and also liked him, because he was at all times simple, 
straightforward, outspoken, and sincere. He became 



122 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

a popular and well-known figure in that western 
country and was regarded as a good fellow, a "white 
man/' entirely fearless, thoroughly good-natured and 
kind, never quarrelsome, and never safe to trifle with, 
bully, or threaten. The life and experiences of that 
time found their way into a book, "The Hunting 
Trips of a Ranchman," interesting in description and 
adventure and also showing a marked literary quality. 

In 1886 he ran as Republican candidate for mayor 
of New York and might have been elected had his own 
party stood by him. But many excellent men of 
Republican faith — the "timid good," as he called them 
—panic-stricken by the formidable candidacy of Henry 
George, flocked to the support of Mr. Abram Hewitt, 
the Democratic candidate, as the man most certain to 
defeat the menacing champion of single taxation. 
Roosevelt was beaten, but his campaign, which was 
entirely his own and the precursor of many others, his 
speeches with their striking quality then visible to the 
country for the first time, all combined to fix the atten- 
tion of the people upon the losing candidate. Roose- 
velt was the one of the candidates who was most inter- 
esting, and again he had touched the imagination of 
the people and cut a little deeper into the popular 
consciousness and memory. 

Two years more of private life, devoted to his home, 
where his greatest happiness was always found, to 
his ranch, to reading and writing books, and then came 
an active part in the campaign of 1888, resultmg in 
the election of President Harrison, who made him 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 123 

civil-service commissioner in the spring of 1889. He 
was in his thirty-first year. Civil-service reform as a 
practical question was then in its initial stages. The 
law establishing it, limited in extent and forced 
through by a few leaders of both parties in the Senate, 
was only six years old. The promoters of the refonn, 
strong in quality, but weak in numbers, had compelled 
a reluctant acceptance of the law by exercising a 
balance-of-power vote in certain States and districts. 
It had few earnest supporters in Congress, some luke- 
warm friends, and many strong opponents. All the 
active politicians were practically against it. Mr. 
Conkling had said that when Dr. Johnson told Boswell 
"that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel" 
he was ignorant of the possibilities of the word 
"reform," and this witticism met with a large response. 
Civil-service reform, meaning the establishment of a 
classified service and the removal of routine adminis- 
trative ofiices from politics, had not reached the masses 
of the people at all. The average voter knew and cared 
nothing about it. When six years later Roosevelt 
resigned from the commission the great body of the 
people knew well what civil-service reform meant, 
large bodies of voters cared a great deal about it. and 
it was established and spreading its control. We have 
had many excellent men who have done good work in 
the Civil Service Commission, although that work is 
neither adventurous nor exciting and rarely attracts 
public attention, but no one has ever forgotten that 



124 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Theodore Roosevelt was once civil-service commis- 
sioner. 

He found the law struggling for existence, laughed 
at, sneered at, surrounded by enemies in Congress, and 
with but few fighting friends. He threw himself into 
the fray. Congress investigated the commission about 
once a year, which was exactly what Roosevelt desired. 
Annually, too, the opponents of the reform would try 
to defeat the appropriation for the commission, and 
this again was playing into Roosevelt's hands, for it led 
to debates, and the newspapers as a rule sustained the 
reform. Senator Gonnan mourned in the Senate over 
the cruel fate of a ''bright young man" who was unable 
to tell on examination the distance of Baltimore from 
China, and thus was deprived of his inalienable right 
to serve his country in the post office. Roosevelt 
proved that no such question had ever been asked and 
requested the name of the ''bright young man." The 
name was not forthcoming, and the victim of a ques- 
tion never asked goes down nameless to posterity in 
the Congressional Record as merely a "bright young 
man." Then General Grosvenor, a leading Republican 
of the House, denounced the commissioner for credit- 
ing his district with an appointee named Rufus 
Putnam who was not a resident of the district, and 
Roosevelt produced a letter from the general recom- 
mending Rufus Putnam as a resident of his district 
and a constituent. All this was unusual. Hitherto it 
had been a safe amusement to ridicule and jeer at civil- 
service reform, and here was a commissioner who dared 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 125 

to reply vigorously to attacks, and even to prove 
Senators and Congressmen to be wrong in their facts. 
The amusement of baiting the Civil Service Commis- 
sion seemed to be less inviting than before, and, worse 
still, the entertaining features seemed to have passed 
to the public, who enjoyed and approved the commis- 
sioner who disregarded etiquette and fought hard for 
the law he was appointe<i to enforce. The law sud- 
denly took on new meaning and became clearly visible 
in the public mind, a great service to the cause of good 
government. 

After six years' service in the Civil Service Commis- 
sion Roosevelt left Washington to accept the position 
of president of the Board of Police Commissioners of 
the city of New York, which had been offered to him 
by Mayor Strong. It is speaking within bounds to say 
that the history of the police force of New York has 
been a checkered one in which the black squares have 
tended to predominate. The task which Roosevelt 
confronted was then, as always, difficult, and the 
machinery of four commissioners and a practically 
irremovable chief made action extremely slow and 
uncertain. Roosevelt set himself to expel politics and 
favoritism in appointments and promotions and to 
crush corruption everywhere. In some way he drove 
through the obstacles and effected great improvements, 
although permanent betterment was perhaps impos- 
sible. Good men were appointed and meritorious men 
promoted as never before, while the corrupt and dan- 
gerous officers were punished in a number of instances 



126 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



I 



sufficient, at least, to check and discourage evildoers. 
Discipline was improved, and the force became very- 
loyal to the chief commissioner, because they learned 
to realize that he was fighting for right and justice 
without fear or favor. The results were also shown in 
the marked decrease of crime, which judges pointed 
out from the bench. Then, too, it was to be observed 
that a New York police commissioner suddenly 
attracted the attention of the country. The work 
which was being done by Roosevelt in New York, his 
midnight walks through the worst quarters of the great 
city, to see whether the guardians of the peace did their 
duty, which made the newspapers compare him to 
Haroun Al Raschid, all appealed to the popular imagi- 
nation. A purely local office became national in his 
hands, and his picture appeared in the shops of Euro- 
pean cities. There was something more than vigor and 
picturesqueness necessary to explain these phenomena. 
The truth is that Roosevelt was really laboring through 
a welter of details to carry out certain general prin- 
ciples which went to the very roots of society and gov- 
ernment. He wished the municipal administration to 
be something far greater than a business man's admin- 
istration, which was the demand that had triumphed at 
the polls. He wanted to make it an administration 
of the workingmen, of the dwellers in the tenements, of 
the poverty and suffering which haunted the back 
streets and hidden purlieus of the huge city. The peo- 
ple did not formulate these purposes as they watched 
what he was doing, but they felt them and understood 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 127 

them by that instinct which is often so keen in vast 
bodies of men. The man who was toiling in the seem- 
ing obscurity of the New York police commission again 
became very distinct to his fellow countrymen and 
deepened their consciousness of his existence and their 
comprehension of his purposes and aspirations. 

Striking as was the effect of this police work, it only 
lasted for two years. In 1897 he was offered by Presi- 
dent McKinley, whom he had energetically supported 
in the preceding campaign, the position of Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy. He accepted at once, for the 
place and the work both appealed to him most 
strongly. The opportunity did not come without 
resistance. The President, an old friend, liked him 
and believed in him, but the Secretary of the Navy had 
doubts, and also fears that Roosevelt might be a dis- 
turbing and restless assistant. There were many poli- 
ticians, too, especially in his own State, whom his 
activities as civil-service and police commissioner did 
not delight, and these men opposed him. But his 
friends were powerful and devoted, and the President 
appointed him. 

His new place had to him a peculiar attraction. He 
loved the Navy. He had written its brilliant history in 
the War of 1812. He had done all in his power to 
stimulate public opinion in support of the "new Navy" 
we were just then beginning to build. That war was 
coming with Spain he had no doubt. We were unpre- 
pared, of course, even for such a war as this, but 
Roosevelt set himself to do what could be done. The 



128 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



best and most farseeing officers rallied round him, yet 
the opportunities were limited. There was much in 
detail accomplished which can not be described here, 
but two acts of his which had very distinct effect upon 
the fortunes of the war must be noted. He saw very 
plainly — although most people never perceived it at 
all — that the Philippines would be a vital point in any 
war with Spain. For this reason it was highly impor- 
tant to have the right man in command of the Asiatic 
Squadron. Roosevelt was satisfied that Dewey was 
the right man, and that his competitor for the post was 
not. He set to work to secure the place for Dewey. 
Through, the aid of the Senators from Dewey's native 
State and others, he succeeded. Dewey was ordered to 
the Asiatic Squadron. Our relations with Spain grew 
worse and worse. On February 25, 1898, war was 
drawing very near, and that Saturday afternoon Roose- 
velt happened to be Acting Secretary, and sent out the 
following cablegram: 

Dewey — Hongkong. 

Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hongkong. 
Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war, Spain, 
your duty will be to see that the Spanish Squadron does not 
leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in the 
Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders. 

Roosevelt. 

I believe he was never again permitted to be Acting 
Secretary. But the deed was done. The wise word of 
readiness had been spoken and was not recalled. War 



1 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 129 

came, and as April closed Dewey, all prepared, slipped 
out of Hongkong and on May 1st fought the battle of 
Manila Bay. 

Roosevelt, however, did not continue long in the 
Navy Department. Many of his friends felt that he 
was doing such admirable work there that he ought to 
remain, but as soon as war was declared he determined 
to go, and his resolution was not to be shaken. Noth- 
ing could prevent his jBighting for his country when 
the country was at war. Congress had authorized three 
volunteer regiments of Cavalry, and the President and 
the Secretary of War gave to Leonard Wood — then a 
surgeon in the Regular Army — as colonel, and to Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, as lieutenant colonel, authority to raise 
one of these regiments, known olEcially as the First 
United States Volunteer Cavalry, and to all the coun- 
try as the ''Rough Riders." The regiment was raised 
chiefly in the Southwest and West, where Roosevelt's 
popularity and reputation among the cowboys and the 
ranchmen brought many eager recruits to serve with 
him. After the regiment had been organized and 
equipped they had some difficulty in getting to Cuba, 
but Roosevelt as usual broke thrqugh all obstacles, and 
finally succeeded, with Colonel Wood, in getting away 
with two battalions, leaving one battalion and the 
horses behind. 

The regiment got into action immediately on landing 
and forced its way, after some sharp fighting in the 
jungle, to the high ground on which were placed the 
fortifications which defended the approach to Santiago. 



130 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



• 



Colonel Wood was almost immediately given command 
of a brigade, and this left Roosevelt colonel of the regi- 
ment. In the battle which ensued and which resulted 
in the capture of the positions commanding Santiago 
and the bay, the Rough Riders took a leading part, 
storming one of the San Juan heights, which they 
christened Kettle Hill, with Roosevelt leading the men 
in person. It was a dashing, gallant assault, well led 
and thoroughly successful. Santiago fell after the 
defeat of the fleet, and then followed a period of sick- 
ness and suffering — the latter due to unreadiness — 
where Roosevelt did everything with his usual driving 
energy to save his men, whose loyalty to their colonel 
went with them through life. The war was soon over, 
but brief as it had been Roosevelt and his men had 
highly distinguished themselves, and he stood out in 
the popular imagination as one of the conspicuous 
figures of the conflict. He brought his regiment back 
to the United States, where they were mustered out, 
and almost immediately afterwards he was nominated 
by the Republicans as their candidate for governor of 
the State of New York. The situation in New York 
was unfavorable for the Republicans, and the younger 
men told Senator Piatt, who dominated the organiza- 
tion and who had no desire for Roosevelt, that unless 
he was nominated they could not win. Thus forced, 
the organization accepted hfm, and it was well for the 
party that they did so. The campaign was a sharp 
one and very doubtful, but Roosevelt was elected by 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 131 

a narrow margin and assumed office at the beginning 
of the new year of 1889. He was then in his forty-first 
year. 

Many problems faced him and none were evaded. 
He was well aware that the "organization" under 
Senator Piatt would not like many things he was sure 
to do, but he determined that he would have neither 
personal quarrels nor faction fights. He knew, being 
blessed with strong common sense, that the Republican 
Party, his own party, was the instrument by which 
alone he could attain his ends, and he did not intend 
that it should be blunted and made useless by internal 
strife. And yet he meant to have his own way. It 
was a difficult role which he undertook to play, but he 
succeeded. He had many differences with the organ- 
ization managers, but he declined to lose his temper 
or to have a break, and he also refused to yield when 
he felt he was standing for the right and a principle 
was at stake. Thus he prevailed. He won on the canal 
question, changed the insurance commissioner, and 
carried the insurance legislation he desired. As in these 
cases, so it was in lesser things. In the police commis- 
sion he had been strongly impressed by the dangers as 
he saw them of the undue and often sinister influence 
of business, finance, and great money interests upon 
government and politics. These feelings were deepened 
and broadened by his experience and observation on 
the larger stage of State administration. The belief 
that political equality must be strengthened and sus- 
tained by industrial equality and a larger economic 



132 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

opportunity was constantly in his thoughts until it 
became a governing and guiding principle. 

Meantime he grew steadily stronger among the 
people, not only of his own State but of the country, 
for he was well known throughout the West, and there 
they were watching eagerly to see how the ranchman 
and colonel of Rough Riders, who had touched both 
their hearts and their imagination, was faring as 
governor of New York. The office he held is always 
regarded as related to the Presidency, and this, joined 
to his striking success as governor, brought him into 
the presidential field wherever men speculated about 
the political future. It was universally agreed that 
McKinley was to be renominated, and so the talk 
turned to making Roosevelt Vice President. A friend 
wrote to him in the summer of 1899 as to this drift of 
opinion, then assuming serious proportions. ''Do not 
attempt," he said, "to thwart the popular desire. You 
are not a man nor are your close friends men who can 
plan, arrange, and manage you into office. You must 
accept the popular wish, whatever it is, follow your 
star, and let the future care for itself. It is the tradi- 
t ion of our politics, and a very poor tradition, that the 
\ ice Presidency is a shelf. It ought to be, and there 
is no reason why it should not be, a stepping-stone. 
Put there by the popular desire, it would be so to you." 
This view, quite naturally, did not commend itself to 
Governor Roosevelt at the moment. He v/as doing 
valuable work in New York; he was deeply engaged 
in important reforms which he had much at heart and 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 133 

which he wished to carry through ; and the Vice Presi- 
dency did not attract him. A year later he was at 
Philadelphia, a delegate at large from his State, with 
his mind michanged as to the Vice Presidency, while 
his New York friends, anxious to have him continue 
his work at Albany, were urging him to refuse. Sen- 
ator Piatt, for obvious reasons, wished to make him 
Vice President, another obstacle to his taking it. 
Roosevelt forced the New York delegation to agree on 
some one else for Vice President, but he could not hold 
the convention, nor could Senator Hanna, who wisely 
accepted the situation. Governor Roosevelt was nomi- 
nated on the first ballot, all other candidates with- 
drawing. He accepted the nomination, little as he 
hked it. 

Thus when it came to the point he instinctively 
followed his star and grasped the unvacillatiiig hand 
of destiny. Little did he think that destiny would lead 
him to the White House through a tragedy which cut 
him to the heart. He was on a mountain in the 
Adirondacks when a guide made his way to him across 
the forest with a telegram telling him that McKinley, 
the wise, the kind, the gentle, with nothing in his heart 
but good will to all men, was dying from a wound 
inflicted by an anarchist murderer, and that the Vice 
President must come to Buffalo at once. A rapid night 
drive through the woods and a special train brought 
him to Buffalo. McKinley was dead before he arrived, 
and that evening Governor Roosevelt was sworn in as 
President of the United States. 



134 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Within the narrow limits of an address it is impos- 
sible to give an account of an administration of seven ? 
years which will occupy hundreds of pages when the 
history of the United States during that period is 
written. It was a memorable administration, mem- 
orable in itself and not by the accident of events, 
and large in its accomplishment. It began with a 
surprise. There were persons in the United States 
who had carefully cultivated, and many people who 
had accepted without thought, the idea that Roosevelt 
was in some way a dangerous man. They gloomily 
predicted that there would be a violent change in the 
policies and in the officers of the McKinley admin- 
istration. But Roosevelt had not studied the history 
of his country in vain. He knew that m three of the 
four cases where Vice Presidents had succeeded to the 
Presidency through the death of the elected President 
their coming had resulted in a violent shifting of 
policies and men, and, as a consequence, in most in- 
jurious dissensions, which in two cases at least proved 
fatal to the party in power. In all four instances the 
final obliteration of the Vice President who had come 
into power through the death of his chief was complete. 
President Roosevelt did not intend to permit any 
of these results. As soon as he came into office he 
announced that he intended to retain President Mc- 
Kinley's Cabinet and to carry out his policies, which 
had been sustained at the polls. To those overzealous 
friends who suggested that he could not trust the ap- 
pointees of President McKinley and that he would 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 135 

be but a pallid imitation of his predecessor he replied 
that he thought, in any event, the administration 
would be his, and that if new occasions required new 
policies he felt that he could meet them, and that no 
one would suspect him of being a pallid imitation of 
anybody. His decision, however, gratified and satis- 
fied the country, and it was not apparent that Roose- 
velt was hampered in any way in carrying out his 
own policies by this wise refusal to make sudden 
and violent changes. 

Those who were alarmed about what he might do 
had also suggested that with his combative propensities 
he was likely to involve the country in war. Yet 
there never has been an administration, as afterwards 
appeared, when we were more perfectly at peace with 
all the world, nor were our foreign relations ever in 
danger of producing hostilities. But this was not due 
in the least to the adoption of a timid or yielding for- 
eign policy; on the contrary, it was owing to the 
firmness of the President in all foreign questions and 
the knowledge which other nations soon acquired that 
President Roosevelt was a man who never threatened 
unless he meant to carry out his threat, the result be- 
ing that he was not obliged to threaten at all. One of 
his earliest successes was forcing the settlement of the 
Alaskan boundary question, which was the single open 
question with Great Britain that was really dangerous 
and contained within itself possibilities of war. The 
accomplishment of this settlement was followed later, 
while Mr. Root was Secretary of State, by the arrange- 



136 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

ment of all our outstanding differences with Canada, 
and during Mr. Root's tenure of office over thii^ty 
treaties were made with different nations, including 
a number of practical and valuable treaties of arbitra- 
tion. When Germany started to take advantage of 
the difficulties in Venezuela the affair culminated in 
the dispatch of Dewey and the fleet to the Caribbean, 
the withdrawal of England at once, and the agreement 
of Germany to the reference of all subjects of difference 
to arbitration. It was President Roosevelt whose good 
offices brought Russia and Japan together in a nego- 
tiation which closed the war between those two pow- 
ers. It was Roosevelt's influence which contributed 
powerfully to settling the threatening controversy be- 
tween Germany, France, and England in regard to 
Morocco, by the Algeciras conference. It was Roose- 
velt who sent the American fleet of battleships round 
the world, one of the most convincing peace move- 
ments over made on behalf of the United States. Thus 
it came about that this President, dreaded at the 
beginning on account of his combative spirit, received 
the Nobel prize in 1906 as the person who had con- 
tributed most to the peace of the world in the pre- 
ceding years, and his contribution was the result of 
strength and knowledge and not of weakness. 

At home he recommended to Congress legislation 
which was directed toward a larger control of the rail- 
roads and to removing the privileges and curbing the 
power of great business combinations obtained through 
rebates and preferential freight rates. This legislation 



I! 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 137 

led to opposition in Congress and to much resistance 
by those affected. As we look back, this legislation, 
so much contested at the time, seems very moderate, 
but it was none the less momentous. President Roose- 
velt never believed in Government ownership, but he 
was thoroughly in favor of strong and effective Gov- 
ernment supervision and regulation of what are now 
known generally as public utilities. He had a deep 
conviction that the political influence of financial 
and business interests and of great combinations of 
capital had become so powerful that the American 
people were beginning to distrust their own Govern- 
ment, than which there could be no greater peril to 
the Republic. By his measures and by his general at- 
titude toward capital and labor both he sought to re- 
store and maintain the confidence of the people in the 
Government they had themselves created. 

In the Panama Canal he left the most enduring, as 
it was the most visible, monument of his adminis- 
tration. Much criticized at the moment for his action 
in regard to it, which time since then has justified and 
which history will praise, the great fact remains that 
the canal is there. He said himself that he made up his 
mind that it was his duty to establish the canal and 
have the debate about it afterwards, which seemed to 
him better than to begin with indefinite debate and 
have no canal at all. This is a view which posterity 
both at home and abroad will accept and approve. 

These, passing over as we must in silence maiiy other 
beneficent acts, are only a few of the most salient fea- 



138 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

tures of his administration, stripped of all detail and 
all enlapgement. Despite the conflicts which some 
of his domestic policies had produced not only with 
his political opponents but within the Republican 
ranks, he was overwhelmingly reelected in 1904, and 
when the seven years had closed the country gave a 
like majority to his chosen successor, taken from his 
own Cabinet. On the 4th of March, 1909, he returned 
to private life at the age of fifty, having been the 
youngest President known to our history. 

During the brief vacations which he had been able 
to secure in the midst of the intense activities of his 
public life after the Spanish War he had turned for 
enjoyment to expeditions in pursuit of big game in the 
wildest and most unsettled regions of the country. 
Open-air life and all its accompaniments of riding and 
hunting were to him the one thing that brought him 
the most rest and relaxation. Now, having left the 
Presidency, he was able to give full scope to the love 
of adventure, which had been strong with him from 
boyhood. Soon after his retirement from office he 
went to Africa, accompanied by a scientific expedition 
sent out by the Smithsonian Institution. He landed 
in East Africa, made his way into the interior, and 
thence to the sources of the Nile, after a trip in every 
way successful, both in exploration and in pursuit of 
big game. He then came down the Nile through 
Egypt and thence to Europe, and no private citizen 
of the United States — probably no private man of any 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 139 

country — was ever received in a manner comparable 
to that which met Roosevelt in every country in Eu- 
rope which he visited. Everywhere it was the same — 
in Italy, in Germany, in France, in England. Every 
honor was paid to him that authority could devise, 
accompanied by every mark of affection and admira- 
tion which the people of those countries were able to 
show. He made few speeches while in Europe, but in 
those few he did not fail to give to the questions and 
thought of the time real and genuine contributions, set 
forth in plain language, always vigorous and often elo- 
quent. He returned in the summer of 1910 to the 
United States and was greeted with a reception on his 
landing in New York quite equaling in interest and 
enthusiasm that which had been given to him in 
Europe. 

For two years afterwards he devoted himself to 
writing, not only articles as contributing editor of the 
Outlook, but books of his own and addresses and 
speeches which he was constantly called upon to make. 
No man in private life probably ever had such an audi- 
ence as he addressed, whether with tongue or pen, 
upon the questions of the day, with a constant refrain 
as to the qualities necessary to make men both good 
citizens and good Americans. In the spring of 1912 
he decided to become a candidate for the Republican 
nomination for the Presidency, and a very heated 
struggle followed between himself and President Taft 
for delegations to the convention. The convention 



140 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

when it assembled in Chicago was the stormiest ever 
known in our history. President Taft was renomi- 
nated, most of the Roosevelt delegates refusing to 
vote, and a large body of Republicans thereupon 
formed a new party called the "Progressive" and nomi- 
nated Mr. Roosevelt as their candidate. This division 
into two nearly equal parts of the Republican Party, 
which had elected Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft in suc- 
cession by the largest majorities ever known, made 
the victory of the Democratic candidate absolutely 
certain. Colonel Roosevelt, however, stood second in 
the poll, receiving 4,119,507 votes, carrying six States 
and winning eighty-eight electoral votes. There never 
has been in political history, when all conditions are 
considered, such an exhibition of extraordinary per- 
sonal strength. To have secured eighty-eight electoral 
votes when his own party was hopelessly divided, with 
no great historic party name and tradition behind him, 
with an organization which had to be hastily brought 
together in a few weeks, seems almost incredible, and 
in all his career there is no display of the strength of 
his hold upon the people equal to this. 

In the following year he yielded again to the long- 
ing for adventure and exploration. Going to South 
America, he made his way up through Paraguay and 
western Brazil, and then across a trackless wilderness 
of jungle and down an unknown river into the Valley 
of the Amazon. It was a remarkable expedition and 
carried him through what is probably the most deadly 
qlimate in the world. He suffered severely from the 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 141 

fever, the poison of which never left him and which 
finally shortened his life. 

In the next year the great war began, and Colonel 
Roosevelt threw himself into it with all the energy 
of his nature. With Major Augustus Gardner he led 
the great fight for preparedness in a country utterly 
unprepared. He saw very plainly that in all human 
probability it would be impossible for us to keep out of 
the war. Therefore in season and out of season he 
demanded that we should make ready. He and Major 
Gardner, with the others who joined them, roused a 
widespread and powerful sentiment in the country, 
but there was no practical effect on the Army. The 
Navy was the single place where anything was really 
done, and that only in the bill of 1916, so that war 
finally came upon us as unready as Roosevelt had 
feared we should be. Yet the campaign he made was 
not in vain, for in addition to the question of prepara- 
tion he spoke earnestly of other things, other burning 
questions, and he always spoke to an enormous body 
of listeners everywhere. He would have had us protest 
and take action at the very beginning, in 1914, when 
Belgium was invaded. He would have had us go to 
war when the murders of the Lusitania were perpe- 
trated. He tried to stir the soul and rouse the spirit 
of the American people, and despite every obstacle 
he did awaken them, so that when the hour came, in 
April, 1917, a large proportion of the American people 
were even then ready in spirit and in hope. How 
telling his work had been was proved by the confession 



142 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

of his country's enemies, for when he died the only dis- 
cordant note, the only harsh words, came from the 
German press. Germany knew whose voice it was 
that more powerfully than any other had called Amer- 
icans to the battle in behalf of freedom and civiliza- 
tion, where the advent of the armies of the United 
States gave victory to the cause of justice and right- 
eousness. 

When the United States went to war Colonel Roose- 
velt's one desire was to be allowed to go to the fighting 
line. There if fate had laid its hand upon him it 
would have found him glad to fall in the trenches or 
in a charge at the head of his men, but it was not per- 
mitted to him to go, and thus he was denied the re- 
ward which he would have ranked above all others, 
"the great prize of death in battle." But he was a 
patriot in every fiber of his being, and personal dis- 
appointment in no manner slackened or cooled his 
zeal. Everything that he could do to forward the 
war, to quicken preparation, to stimulate patriotism, 
to urge on efficient action, was done. Day and night, 
in season and out of season, he never ceased his labors. 
Although prevented from going to France himself, he 
gave to the great conflict that which was far dearer to 
him than his own life. I can not say that he sent his 
four sons, because they all went at once, as every one 
knew that their father's sons would go. Two were 
badly wounded; one was killed. He met the blow 
with the most splendid and unflinching courage, met 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 143 

it as Siward, the Earl of Northumberland, receives 

in the play the news of his son's death : 

» 

Siw. Had he his hurts before? 

Ross. Ay, on the front, 

Siw. Why, then, God's soldier be he! 

Had I as many sons as I have hairs, 
I would not wish them to a fairer death : 
And so his knell is knoll'd. 

Among the great tragedies of Shakespeare, and there 
are none greater in all the literature of man, Macbeth 
was Colonel Roosevelt's favorite, and the moving 
words which I have just quoted I am sure were in his 
heart and on his lips when he faced with stern resolve 
and self-control the anguish brought to him by the 
death of his youngest boy, killed in the glor>' of a 
brave and brilliant youth. 

He lived to see the right prevail ; he lived to see civ- 
ilization triumph over organized barbarism; and there 
was great joy in his heart. In all his last days the 
thoughts which filled his mind were to secure a peace 
which should render Germany forever harmless and 
advance the cause of ordered freedom in every land 
and among every race. This occupied him to the 
exclusion of everything else, except what he called and 
what we like to call Americanism. There was no hour 
down to the end when he would not turn aside from 
everything else to preach the doctrine of Americanism, 
of the principles and the faith upon which American 
government rested, and which all true Americans 



144 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

should wear in their heart of hearts. He was a great 
patriot, a great man ; above all, a great American. His 
country was the ruling, mastering passion of his life 
from the beginning even unto the end. 

So closes the inadequate, most incomplete account 
of a life full of work done and crowded with achieve- 
ment, brief in years and prematurely ended. The 
recitation of the offices which he held and of some of 
the deeds that he did is but a bare, imperfect catalogue 
into which history when we are gone will breathe a 
lasting life. Here to-day it is only a background, and 
that which most concerns us now is what the man 
was of whose deeds done it is possible to make such 
a list. What a man was is ever more important than 
what he did, because it is upon what he was that all 
his achievement depends and his value and meaning 
to his fellow men must finally rest. 

Theodore Roosevelt always believed that character 
was of greater worth and moment than anything else. 
He possessed abilities of the first order, which he was 
disposed to underrate, because he set so much greater 
store upon the moral qualities which we bring together 
under the single word "character." 

Let me speak first of his abilities. He had a power- 
ful, well-trained, ever-active mind. He thought clearly, 
independently, and with originality and imagination. 
These priceless gifts were sustained by an extraordi- 
nary power of acquisition, joined to a greater quick- 
ness of apprehension, a greater swiftness in seizing 
upon the essence of a question, than I have ever hap- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 145 

pened to see in any other man. His reading began 
with natural history, then went to general history, 
and thence to the whole field of literature. He had a 
capacity for concentration which enabled him to read 
with remarkable rapidity anything which he took up, 
if only for a moment, and which separated him for the 
time being from everything going on about him. The 
subjects upon which he was well and widely informed 
would, if enumerated, fill a large space, and to this 
power of acquisition was united not only a tenacious 
but an extraordinarily accurate memory. It was never 
safe to contest with him on any question of fact or 
figures, whether they related to the ancient AssjTians 
or to the present-day conditions of the tribes of cen- 
tral Africa, to the Syracusan Expedition, as told by 
Thucydides, or to protective coloring in birds and ani- 
mals. He knew and held details always at command, 
but he was not mastered by them. He never failed 
to see the forest on account of the trees or the city on 
account of the houses. 

He made himself a writer, not only of occasional 
addresses and essays, but of books. He had the trained 
thoroughness of the historian, as he showed in his 
history of the War of 1812 and of the "Winning of the 
West," and nature had endowed him with that most 
enviable of gifts, the faculty of narrative and the art 
of the teller of tales. He knew how to weigh evidence 
in the historical scales and how to depict character. 
He learned to write with great ease and fluency. He 
was always vigorous, always energetic, always clear and 



146 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

forcible in everything he wrote — nobody could ever 
misunderstand him — and when he allowed himself time 
and his feelings were deeply engaged he gave to the 
world many pages of beauty as well as power, not only 
in thought but in form and style. At the same time 
he made himself a public speaker, and here again, 
through a practise probably unequaled in amount, he 
became one of the most effective in all our history. In 
speaking, as in writing, he was always full of force and 
energy; he drove home his arguments and never was 
misunderstood. In many of his more carefully pre- 
pared addresses are to be found passages of impressive 
eloquence, touched with imagination and instinct with 
grace and feeling. 

He had a large capacity for administration, clearness 
of vision, promptness in decision, and a thorough 
apprehension of what constituted efficient organization. 
All the vast and varied work which he accomplished 
could not have been done unless he had had most 
exceptional natural abilities, but behind them, most 
important of aU, was the driving force of an intense 
energy and the ever-present belief that a man could do 
what he willed to do. As he made himself an athlete, 
a horseman, a good shot, a bold explorer, so he made 
himself an exceptionally successful writer and speaker. 
Only a most abnormal energy would have enabled him 
to enter and conquer in so many fields of intellectual 
achievement. But something more than energy and 
determination is needed for the largest success, espe- 
cially in the world's high places. The first requisite of 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 147 

leadership is ability to lead, and that ability Theodore 
Roosevelt possessed in full measure. Whether in a 
game or in the hunting field, in a fight or in politics, 
he sought the front, where, as Webster once remarked, 
there is always plenty of room for those who can get 
there. His instinct was always to say "come" rather 
than "go," and he had the talent of command. 

His also was the rare gift of arresting attention 
sharply and suddenly, a very precious attribute, and 
one easier to illustrate than to describe. This arrest- 
ing power is like a common experience, which we have 
all had on entering a picture gallery, of seeing at once 
and before all others a single picture among the many 
on the walls. For a moment you see nothing else, 
although you may be surrounded wuth masterpieces. 
In that particular picture lurks a strange, capturing, 
gripping fascination as impalpable as it is unmistak- 
able. Roosevelt had this same an-esting, fascinating 
quality. Whether in the legislature at Albany, the 
Civil Service Commission at Washington, or the police 
commission in New York, whether in the Spanish War 
or on the plains among the cowboys, he was always 
vivid, at times startling, never to be overlooked. Nor 
did this power stop here. He not only without effort 
or intention drew the eager attention of the people to 
himself, he could also engage and fix their thoughts 
upon anything which happened to interest him. It 
might be a man or a book, reformed spelling or some 
large historical question, his traveling library or the 
military preparation of the United States, he had but 



148 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

to say, "See how interesting, how important, is this 
man or this event," and thousands, even miUions, of 
people would reply, "We never thought of this before, 
but it certainly is one of the most interesting, most 
absorbing things in the world." He touched a subject 
and it suddenly began to glow as when the high-power 
electric current touches the metal and the white light 
starts forth and dazzles the onlooking eyes. We know 
the air played by the Pied Piper of Hamelin no better 
than we know why Theodore Roosevelt thus drew the 
interest of men after him. We only know they fol- 
lowed wherever his insatiable activity of mind invited 
them. ' 

Men follow also most readily a leader who is always 
there before them, clearly visible and just where they 
expect him. They are especially eager to go forward 
with a man who never sounds a retreat. Roosevelt 
was always advancing, always struggling to make 
things better, to carry some much-needed reform, and 
help humanity to a larger chance, to a fairer condition, 
to a happier life. Moreover, he looked always for an 
ethical question. He was at his best when he was 
fighting the battle of right against wrong. He thought 
soundly and wisely upon questions of expediency or 
of political economy, but they did not rouse him or 
bring him the absorbed interest of the eternal conflict 
between good and evil. Yet he was never impractical, 
never blinded by counsels of perfection, never seeking 
to make the better the enemy of the good. He wished 
to get the best, but he would strive for all that was 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 149 

possible even if it fell short of the highest at which he 
aimed. He studied the lessons of history, and did not 
think the past bad simply because it was the past, or 
the new good solely because it was new. He sought 
to try all questions on their intrinsic merits, and that 
was why he succeeded in advancing, in making govern- 
ment and society better, where others, who would be 
content with nothing less than an abstract perfection, 
failed. He would never compromise a principle, but 
he was eminently tolerant of honest differences of 
opinion. He never hesitated to give generous credit 
where credit seemed due, whether to friend or oppo- 
nent, and in this way he gathered recruits and yet 
never lost adherents. 

The criticism most commonly made upon Theodore 
Roosevelt was that he was impulsive and impetuous; 
that he acted without thinking. He would have been 
the last to claim infallibility. His head did not turn 
when fame came to him and choruses of admiration 
sounded in his ears, for he was neither vain nor credu- 
lous. He knew that he made mistakes, and never hesi- 
tated to admit them to be mistakes and to correct them 
or put them behind him when satisfied that they were 
such. But he wasted no time in mourning, explaining, 
or vainly regretting them. It is also true that the 
middle way did not attract him. He was apt to go far, 
both in praise and censure, although nobody could 
analyze qualities and balance them justly in judging 
men better than he. He felt strongly, and as he had 
no concealments of any kind, he expressed himself in 



150 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

like manner. But vehemence is not violence, nor is ii 
earnestness anger, which a very wise man defined as a f I 
brief madness. It was all according to his nature, just 
as his eager cordiality in meeting men and women, his 
keen interest in other people's care or joys, was not 
assumed, as some persons thought who did not know 
him. It was all profoundly natural, it was all real, 
and in that way and in no other was he able to meet 
and greet his fellow men. He spoke out with the most 
unrestrained frankness at all times and in all com- 
panies. Not a day passed in the Presidency when he 
was not guilty of what the trained diplomatist would 
call indiscretions. But the frankness had its own 
reward. There never was a President whose confidence 
was so respected or with whom the barriers of honor 
which surround private conversation were more scru- 
pulously observed. At the same time, when the public , 
interest required, no man could be more wisely reti- 
cent. He was apt, it is true, to act suddenly and ' ' 
decisively, but it was a complete mistake to suppose 
that he therefore acted without thought or merely on 
a momentary impulse. When he had made up his 
m.ind he was resolute and unchanging, but he made up 
his mind only after much reflection, and there never 
was a President in the White House who consulted not 
only friends but political opponents and men of all 
kinds and conditions more than Theodore Roosevelt. 
When he had reached his conclusion he acted quickly 
and drove hard at his object, and this it was, probably, 
which gave an impression that he acted sometimes 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 151 

hastily and thoughtlessly, which was a complete mis- 
apprehension of the man. His action was emphatic, 
but emphasis implies reflection not thoughtlessness. 
One can not even emphasize a word without a process, 
however slight, of mental differentiation. 

The feeling that he was impetuous and impulsive 
was also due to the fact that in a sudden, seemingly 
unexpected crisis he would act with great rapidity. 
This happened when he had been for weeks, perhaps 
for months, considering what he should do if such a 
crisis arose. He always believed that one of the most 
important elements of success, whether in public or 
in private life, was to know what one meant to do 
under given circumstances. If he saw the possibility 
of perilous questions arising, it was his practise to 
think over carefully just how he would act under cer- 
tain contingencies. Many of the contingencies never 
arose. Now and then a contingency became an 
actuality, and then he was ready. He knew what he 
meant to do, he acted at once, and some critics con- 
sidered him impetuous, impulsive, and therefore dan- 
gerous, because they did not know that he had thought 
the question all out beforehand. 

Very many people, powerful elements in the com- 
munity, regarded him at one time as a dangerous 
radical, bent upon overthrowing all the safeguards of 
society and planning to tear out the foundations of an 
ordered liberty. As a matter of fact, what Theodore 
Roosevelt was trying to do was to strengthen American 
society and American Government by demonstrating to 



152 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the American people that he was aiming at a larger 
economic equality and a more generous industrial 
opportunity for all men, and that any combination of 
capital or of business, which threatened the control of 
the Government by the people who made it, was to be 
curbed and resisted, just as he would have resisted an 
enemy who tried to take possession qf the city of 
Washington. He had no hostility to a man because he 
had been successful in business or because he had accu- 
mulated a fortune. If the man had been honestly 
successful and used his fortune wisely and beneficently, 
he was regarded by Theodore Roosevelt as a good citi- 
zen. The vulgar hatred of wealth found no place in 
his heart. He had but one standard, one test, and that 
was whether a man, rich or poor, was an honest man, a 
good citizen, and a good American. He tried men, 
whether they were men of "big business" or members 
of a labor union, by their deeds, and in no other way. 
The tyranny of anarchy and disorder, such as is now 
desolating Russia, was as hateful to him as any other 
tyranny, whether it came from an autocratic system 
like that of Germany or from the misuse of organized 
capital. Personally he believed in every man earning 
his own living, and he earned money and was glad to 
do so ; but he had no desire or taste for making money, 
and he was entirely indifferent to it. The simplest of 
men in his own habits, the only thing he really would 
have liked to have done with ample wealth would have 
been to give freely to the many good objects which 
continually interested him. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 153 

Theodore Roosevelt's power, however, and the main 
source of all his achievement, was not in the offices 
which he held, for those offices were to him only oppor- 
tunities, but in the extraordinary hold which he estab- 
lished and retained over great bodies of men. He had 
the largest personal following ever attained by any 
man in our history. I do not mean by this the follow- 
ing which comes from great political office or from 
party candidacy. There have been many men who 
have held the highest offices in our history by the votes 
of their fellow countrymen who have never had any- 
thing more than a very small personal following. By 
personal following is meant here that w^hich supports 
and sustains and goes with a man simply because he 
is himself; a following which does not care whether 
their leader and chief is in office or out of office, which 
is with him and behind him because they, one and all, 
believe in him and love him and are ready to stand by 
him for the sole and simple reason that they have per- 
fect faith that he will lead them where they wish and 
where they ought to go. This following Theodore 
Roosevelt had, as I have said, in a larger degree than 
any one in our history, and the fact that he had it and 
what he did with it for the welfare of his fellow men 
have given him his great place and his lasting fame. 

This is not mere assertion ; it was demonstrated, as 
I have aheady pointed out, by the vote of 1912, and at 
all times, from the day of his accession to the Presi- 
dency onward, there were miUions of people in this 
country ready to follow Theodore Roosevelt and vote 



154 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

for him, or do anything else that he wanted, whenever 
he demanded their support or raised his standard. It 
was this great mass of support among the people, and 
which probably was never larger than in these last 
years, that gave him his immense influence upon pub- 
lic opinion, and public opinion was the weapon which 
he used to carry out all the pohcies which he wished to 
bring to fulfilment and to consolidate all the achieve- 
ments upon which he had set his heart. This extraor- 
dinary popular strength was not given to him solely 
because the people knew him to be honest and brave, 
because they were certain that physical fear was an 
emotion unknown to him, and that his moral courage 
equaled the physical. It was not merely because they 
thoroughly believed him to be sincere. All this knowl- 
edge and belief, of course, went to making his popular 
leadership secure; but there was much more in it than 
that, something that went deeper, basic elements which 
were not upon the surface which were due to qualities 
of temperament interwoven with his very being, 
inseparable from him and yet subtle rather than obvi- 
ous in their effects. 

All men admire courage, and that he possessed in 
the highest degree. But he had also something larger 
and rarer than courage, in the ordinary acceptation 
of the word. When an assassin shot hun at Milwau- 
kee he was severely wounded; how severely he could 
not tell, but it might well have been mortal. He went 
on to the great meeting awaiting him and there, bleed- 
ing, suffering, ignorant of his fate, but still uncon- 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 155 

quered, made his speech and went from the stage to the 
hospital. What bore him up was the dauntless spirit 
which could rise victorious over pain and darkness and 
the unknown and' meet the duty of the hour as if all 
were well. A spirit like this awakens in all men more 
than admiration, it kindles affection and appeals to 
every generous impulse. 

Very different, but equally compelling, was another 
quality. There is nothing in human beings at once so 
sane and so sympathetic as a sense of humor. This 
great gift the good fairies conferred upon Theodore 
Roosevelt at his birth in unstinted measure. No man 
ever had a more abundant sense of humor — joyous, 
irrepressible humor — and it never deserted him. Even 
at the most serious and even perilous moments if there 
was a gleam of humor anywhere he saw it and rejoiced 
and helped himself with it over the rough places and 
in the dark hour. He loved fun, loved to joke and 
chaff, and, what is more uncommon, greatly enjoyed 
being chaffed himself. His ready smile and contagious 
laugh made countless friends and saved him from many 
an enmity. Even more generally effective than his 
humor, and yet allied to it, was the universal knowl- 
edge that Roosevelt had no secrets from the American 
people. 

Yet another quality — perhaps the most engaging of 
all — was his homely, generous humanity which en- 
abled him to speak directly to the primitive instincts 
of man. 



156 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

He dwelt with the tribes of the marsh and moor, 

He sate at the board of kings ; 
He tasted the toil of the burdened slave 

And the joy that triumph brings. 
But whether to jungle or palace hall 

Or white-walled tent he came, 
He was brother to king and soldier and slave 

His welcome was the same. 

He was very human and intensely American, and 
this knit a bond between him and the American people 
which nothing could ever break. And then he had yet 
one more attraction, not so impressive, perhaps, as the 
others, but none the less very important and very 
captivating. He never by any chance bored the Ameri- 
can people. They might laugh at him or laugh with 
him, they might like what he said or dislike it, they 
might agree with him or disagree with him, but they 
were never wearied by him, and he never failed to 
interest them. He was never heavy, laborious, or dull. 
If he had made any effort to be always interesting and 
entertaining he would have failed and been tiresome. 
He was unfailmgly attractive, because he was always 
perfectly natural and his own unconscious self. And 
so all these things combined to give him his hold upon 
the American people, not only upon their minds, but 
upon their hearts and their instincts, which nothing 
could ever weaken, and which made him one of the 
most remarkable, as he was one of the strongest, char- 
acters that the history of popular government can 
show. He was also— and this is very revealing and 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 157 

explanatory, too, of his vast popularity — a man of 
ideals. He did not expose them daily on the roadside 
w itli language fluttering about them like the Thibetan 
who ties his slip of paper to the prayer wheel whirling 
in the wind. He kept his ideals to himself until the 
hour of fulfilment arrived. Some of them were the 
dreams of boyhood, from which he never departed, and 
which I have seen him carry out shyly and yet thor- 
oughly and with intense personal satisfaction. 

He had a touch of the knight errant in his daily life, 
although he would never have admitted it; but it was 
there. It was not visible in the medieval form of 
shining armor and dazzling tournaments, but in the 
never-ceasing effort to help the poor and the oppressed, 
to defend and protect women and children, to right the 
wronged and succor the downtrodden. Passing by on 
the other side was not a mode of travel through life 
ever possible to him; and yet he was as far distant 
from the professional philanthropist as could well be 
imagined, for^ all he tried to do to help his fellow men 
he regarded as part of the day's work to be done and 
not talked about. No man ever prized sentiment or 
hated sentimentality more than he. He preached 
unceasing!}^ the familiar morals which lie at the bottom 
of both family and public life. The blood of some 
ancestral Scotch covenanter or of some Dutch reformed 
preacher facing the tyranny of Philip of Spain was in 
his veins, and with his large opportunities and his vast 
audiences he was always ready to appeal for justice and 
righteousness. But his own personal ideals he never 



158 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

attempted to thrust upon the world until the day came 
when they were to be translated into realities of action. 

When the future historian traces Theodore Roose- 
velt's extraordinary career he will find these embodied 
ideals planted like milestones along the road over 
which he marched. They never left him. His ideal 
of public service was to be found in his life, and as his 
life drew to its close he had to meet his ideal of sacri- 
fice face to face. All his sons went from him to the war, 
and one was killed upon the field of honor. Of all the 
ideals that lift men up, the hardest to fulfil is the 
ideal of sacrifice. Theodore Roosevelt met it as he 
had all others and fulfilled it to the last jot of its terri- 
ble demands. His country asked the sacrifice and he 
gave it with solemn pride and uncomplaining lips. 

This is not the place to speak of his private life, 
but within that sacred circle no man was ever more 
blessed in the utter devotion of a noble wife and the 
passionate love of his children. The absolute purity 
and beauty of his family life tell us why the pride and 
interest which his fellow countrymen felt in him were 
always touched with the warm light of love. In the 
home so dear to him, in his sleep, death came, and — 

So Valiant-for-Truth passed over and all the trumpets 
sounded for him on the other side. 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND! 

During the last three centuries there has grown up 
an immense literature solely concerned with the play 
and the character of "Hamlet." It is not merely that 
this ''Hamlet" literature makes of itself a respectable 
library; it has been stated by Professor Lounsbury, I 
think, that there is a larger literature devoted to 
"Hamlet" than to any other man, whether fictitious 
or historical, excepting of course the founders of reli- 
gions. Brandes says that the literature of Hamlet is 
larger than that of some of the smaller nationalities of 
Europe, the Slovak for example. Before such evidence 
as this of the creative power of a great imagination one 
can only marvel silently and hold one's peace. And 
yet "Hamlet" is only one item in the vast Shake- 
spearian literature. In varying degrees all the plays 
have gathered a literature about them, each one its 
own, ever growing larger as the years pass by. Among 
these plays other than "Hamlet" the "Tempest" is 
conspicuous in commentary and annotation. Mr. 
Furness, than whom there can be no higher authority, 
in his preface to the "Tempest" says that despite the 
unusual excellence of the text "there is scarcely one of 

' Reprinted, by the kind permission of Professor Brander Mathews, 
from the Dramatic Mustum of Columbia University, New York, 
1919. 

159 



160 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

its five acts which does not contain a word or a phrase 
that has given rise to eager discussion ; in one instance, 
the controversy assumes such extended proportions 
that in its presence even Juliet's 'runawaye's eyes may 
wink' and veil their lids in abashed inferiority." Mr. 
Furness then adds that "certain it is that with the 
exception of 'Hamlet' and 'Julius Caesar' no play has 
been more liberally annotated than the 'Tempest.' " 

I confess that I was surprised to find that "Julius 
Caesar" came next to "Hamlet" in the amount of criti- 
cism, commentary and speculation which it had called 
forth. But it is entirely natural that notwithstanding 
its unusually excellent text the "Tempest" should be 
third on the list. For this there are abundant rea- 
sons. In the first place it is now generally accepted 
by those most competent to judge; indeed it may 
be said that it is now proved that the "Tempest" 
was Shakespeare's last play and in this final creation 
the genius of the master shone with undiminished 
luster. It also contains allusions, like Prospero's break- 
ing his wand, which the lovers of Shakespeare have 
been pleased to fancy were related to the writer him- 
self. 

In the "Tempest," moreover, the unities, of which it 
was the fashion to say at one time that Shakespeare 
knew nothing, are observed with the most extreme 
care. More than once the time supposed to be occu- 
pied by the events upon the stage is pressed upon our 
attention so that we are compelled to realize that the 
action of the play occurs within limits of time but little 



I 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 161 

more extensive than that actually consumed in its rep- 
resentation. The unity of place is assured by the fact 
that the scene is on an island and is confined largely 
to the immediate neighborhood of Prospero's cell. 
The unity of action is obvious, for the story and the 
plot are simple and direct, unbroken by digression or 
underplots in a most remarkable degree. It seems as if 
we could hear Shakespeare saying "before I retire to 
silence I will show the world and the champions of the 
unities that although I have deliberately discarded the 
rules which Trissino and the French and Ben Jonson 
have developed far beyond Aristotle to whom they 
attribute them, I can write a play in which these same 
unities shall be better and more clearly observed than 
in any other drama known to us." This at all events 
is what he did. 

Then there is Caliban, one of the strangest of con- 
ceptions, unlike any creation of character in the other 
plays, or, indeed, in all literature. In no respect super- 
natural, distinctly human and yet wholly unlike the 
humanity we know, the theories and explanations of 
Caliban are well-nigh as varied and as numerous as 
those pertaining to "Hamlet." The strong suggestion 
in the "monster's" character that here we find Shake- 
speare's intimation of the evolution of man and of the 
missing link is enough of itself to fascinate inquiry and 
breed unending speculation. 

Then there is the question of the plot. All efforts to 
show where Shakespeare took or whence, in the lan- 
guage of the wise, he "conveyed" the plot of the "Tern- 



162 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

pest" have failed. This is a cause of very great discon- 
tent. Deep hidden always in many hearts is the desire 
to bring down to the general average of the common- 
place the man who has soared high above his fellows. 
It is frequently manifested in the popular preference 
for the amateur as against the expert. The amateur 
may be the veriest charlatan and liar imaginable, but 
without proof or reason he is to be believed and 
crowned while the prize is refused or grudgingly given 
to the man who has earned it by the toil and training 
of a lifetime. There are always voices to whisper 
or to cry out that the great inventor or the bold dis- 
coverer robbed the obscure failure, that the victorious 
commander owed everything to his chief of staff, that 
the great painter filched his art from his unknown 
student. The mass of mankind however are fortu- 
nately ready for hero worship and eager to follow the 
heroes. Not infrequently they are mistaken and de- 
ceived in their hero, but none the less it is well that 
they should have the capacity for devotion to an ideal. 
"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have 
loved at all." It is far better to have the generous 
emotion even if it leads astray now and then than to be 
incapable of it. This longing among minds of a certain 
type, however, to lower greatness to the "• ~~^^ion level 
is especially marked in literature. In a little study of 
Le Sage, Sir Walter Scott says: "Le Sage's claim to 
originality, in this delightful work ['Gil Bias'] has been 
idly, I had almost said ungratefully, contested by those 
critics, who conceive they detect the plagiarist when- 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 163 

ever they see a resemblance in the general subject of a 
work, to one which has been before treated by an infe- 
rior artist. It is a favorite theme of laborious dulness, 
to trace out such conicidences; because they appear to 
reduce genius of the highest order to the usual standard 
of humanity, and, of course, to bring the author nearer 
a level with his critics." 

The results of this law, laid down by Scott, have 
naturally attained, in the case of Shakespeare, gigantic 
proportions. Every word he wrote has been scanned, 
every allusion, every sentiment, every thought has been 
harried and twisted in the hope of finding evidence of 
plagiarism not only in books which he doubtless read 
but in the darkest and most obscure corners and mazes 
of literature where he never could have wandered. The 
levelers could not see that, in regard to the plots of 
the plays, for example, except as a gratification of curi- 
osity it was of no earthly consequence where Shake- 
speare found, or borrowed, or took, or stole them. The 
one thing w^hich mattered w^as that after his sign man- 
ual had been imposed upon the plots no man smce has 
dared to touch them and the Duke of Marlborough 
could truthfully say that the only history of England 
known to most English-speaking people was that writ- 
ten by William Shakespeare. In the case of the creator 
of "Hamlet" and "Falstaff," however, the hostiUty to 
all superiority common to minds of a certain cast has 
gone so far that a group of persons has arisen, small 
but vocal, which has undertaken wholly to deny his 
authorship and transfer it without one scintilla of his- 



164 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

torical evidence to a great man of brilliant abilities 
who was as incapable of writing the plays as he was 
of being a true friend, an upright politician or an incor- 
ruptible judge. The miracle of Shakespeare's genius is 
so unbearable to certain natures that they find comfort 
in the Baconian theory because they can understand 
Bacon's ability, although far beyond their own, while 
they cannot comprehend the pure, inexplicable genius 
of Shakespeare. Others have sought to substitute 
Marlowe, others a multiple authorship, still others 
some member of the peerage who was known to be 
able to read, for that of Shakespeare. The object is 
not to aggrandize Bacon or Marlowe or the incorpo- 
rated authors or the unknown member of the peerage, 
but to destroy Shakespeare. It is an odd manifestation 
of the power of envy, which passes under many names, 
but which lies deep-rooted in some human hearts. 
Apart from this the manifestation is only a ripple 
in the great current of Shakespearian fame and will, 
in due time, become, like Voltaire's criticism, a mere 
curiosity in the history and literature of the plays as 
they keep their course along the high road of time. 
Each successive century, each period comes and goes, 
brings its contribution toward a better understanding 
of the master, and also its theories and its lunacies. 
What is worthy of life lives, that which is worthless and 
born of envy and detraction or of mere fantasy per- 
ishes, but the creations of the mighty imagination pass 
on like the "imperial votaress in maiden meditation 
fancy free" to lift up and delight the world. 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 165 

Like the plots and the text, like the phrases and the 
very words, the scenes of the plays have been swept up 
in the all-embracing dragnet of critical examination and 
inquiry, and among them all none perhaps has excited 
more interest and speculation than Prospero's Island. 
The learning on this subject is all gathered up by Mr. 
Furness in the note which begins on the first page of his 
Variorum edition of the "Tempest," There we are told 
that Hunter in his "Disquisition" (1839) elaborately 
argued that Lampedusa, lying south of Sicily and west 
of Malta, was Prospero's Island. Then came Theodor 
Elze, who agreed with Hunter that Shakespeare had a 
real island in mind but that it was not Lampedusa but 
Pantalaria in the same region, a little further to the 
north. In both cases much erudition and great inge- 
nuity are expended to prove the case, but there is not 
the slightest real evidence to indicate that Shakespeare 
had heard of either island or that they had even 
attracted any attention in the Elizabethan period. 

Malone wrote a long essay to show — and he had good 
evidence to support his theory — that the early accounts 
of the Bermudas and especially the shipwreck of Sir 
George Somers had much to do with Shakespeare's con- 
struction of the scene of the "Tempest" and with the 
storm which opens the play. This view w^as wholly 
reasonable and it was put forward with the moderation 
and sense of a sound critic and trained Shakespearian 
scholar. But others less informed were not content to 
stop with Malone at the suggestion that Shakespeare 
found material for his storm and his island in the 



166 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

Bermuda voyages. Chalmers declares that the Bermu- 
das were the scene of the "Tempest." So does Thomas 
Moore, who visited the Bermudas but obviously had 
not studied the play. So does Mrs. Jamieson, and so 
also in these later days does Mr. Kipling, all alike not 
sufficiently mindful that a thorough knowledge of the 
play is quite as important as an acquaintance with the 
Bermudas when one engages in the perilous task of 
identifying Prospero's Island. Swift says: ''What they 
do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do 
we are told expressly, that they neither marry nor are 
given in marriage." So we may say that we are igno- 
rant of where on the face of the waters Prospero's 
Island may have been, but we know where it was not 
situated. It was not one of the Bermudas, for Ariel 
says (Act I, Scene 2) : 

Safely in harbor 
Is the King's ship ; in the deep nook, where once 
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew 
From the still vex'd Bermoothes, — 

Ariel would hardly have brought dew jrom the Ber- 
mudas to the Bermudas and we may take the passage 
as Shakespeare's distinct declaration that his readers 
were to understand that the island of the 'Tempest" 
was not one of the Bermudas. 

The famous allusion to the "still vex'd Bermoothes 
has, however, a very real importance in quite another 
way for it is one of the evidences of the date of the 
play. The Bermudas had long been known. In the 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 167 

"Legatio Babylonica" of Peter Martyr, published iii 
1511, the island of "La Bennuda" is shown on a map 
and the name is apparently taken from a certain Juan 
de Bermudez, who discovered them on one of his earlier 
voyages. The first account of them is that of Gonzales 
Ferdinando de Oviedo in 1515. In 1527 the Portuguese 
had a plan for colonizing them which came to nothing. 
They appear on Sebastian Cabot's Mappa Mundi in 
1544 with the description of "De Demonios," which 
clung to them for many years. In 1593 an English sea- 
man, Henry May, was wrecked there and wrote an 
account of the islands for the benefit of his country- 
men. The Bermudas did not, however, become vivid 
to Englishmen or arrest their attention until the ship- 
wreck of Sir George Somers, who set out with nine ves- 
sels in 1609 to carry men and supplies and support in 
every form to the struggling colony of Jamestown in 
Virginia. It was an expedition of large size and much 
importance, destined to sustain England's first totter- 
ing foothold in the great new world of America and it 
attracted a corresponding amount of interest in that 
period of adventure by land and sea as well as in the 
realms of thought and imagination. The fleet encoun- 
tered a severe storm. Sir George Somers, "Admirall," 
with Sir Thomas Gates, the Governor and Captain 
Newport, in their vessel the Sea Venture, were driven 
from their course and wrecked on the Bermudas. The 
rest of the fleet, some eight vessels in all, kept on to 
Virginia and were of much concern to American history 
but wholly beyond the ken of Prospero's Island. The 



1 



168 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 



casting away of Sir Thomas Gates aiid Sir George 
Somers on the Bermudas, whence they ultimately made 
their way to Virginia, attracted widespread attention in 
England and we have no less than four accounts of it. 
There is first Sir George Somers' own brief letter to 
the Earl of Salisbury of June 20, 1610; ^ second, a 
tract of twenty-eight pages published in 1610 entitled 
"A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonies in 
Virginia"; - third, a tract published in 1610 entitled, 
"A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the 
'He of Divels,' by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Som- 
mers and Captayne Newport, with divers others, set 
forth for the love of my country and also for the Good 
of the Plantation in Virginia by Sil Jourdan" ^ and 
finally, there appeared "A true reporie of the wrack 
and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight; upon 
and from the Islands of the Bermudas; his Comming 
to Virginia, and the estate of that Colonie there, and 
after, under the government of the Lord La Warre July 
15, 1610. Written by Wil. Strachy, Esq." ^ In the last 
three of these tracts there were abundant details and 
ample material for the storm with which the ''Tem- 
pest" opens and for a description of the islands. There 
was no necessity whatever nor any reason to compel 
or induce Shakespeare on the eve of his retirement to 
seek out as Mr. Kipling suggests in the pit of the thea- 

^Lefroy's "Discovery and Settlement of the Bermudas." Vol. 1, 
page 10. 

^Force's "Historical Tracts." Vol. Ill, No. 1. 

^ Under another title this tract is given as No. Ill in Force's 
"Historical Tracts." Vol. III. 

* "Purchas his Pilgrimes." MacLehose edition. Vol. XIX, page 5. 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 169 

ter or elsewhere drunken sailors in order to extract from 
them information to aid him in making his play. He 
had all his accounts of shipwreck and of his island 
ready to his hand in the printed narratives of intelli- 
gent eye-witnesses. Still less was it needful that in 
order to create Stephano and Trinculo he should con- 
verse with and mcite to drunkenness sailors who 
strayed into his theater. During his many years in 
London in the great period covering the Armada and 
the widest and wildest sea adventures, sailors com- 
bined with intoxication had probably not escaped an 
observation which it may be safely said was neither 
languid nor dull. 

However this may be there is certainly no escape 
from a recognition of the strong family likeness be- 
tween the storms pictured in the three tracts and that 
which with such complete vividness opens the "Tem- 
pest." In his admirable and most illuminating essay 
on the "English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century" ^ 
Sir Walter Raleigh says: "The tales of these adven- 
turers, brought by word of mouth, or published in the 
'Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the He of 
Divels' a tract by Silvester Jourdan, one of Sir George 
Somer's company, gave the finest and subtlest wit in 
the world a theme for a play. The 'Tempest' is a 
fantasy of the New World. It is too full of the ether 
of poetry and too many-sided to be called a satire, yet 
Shakespeare, almost alone, saw the problem of Ameri- 

'MacLehose edition of Hakluyt. Vol. XII. 



170 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

can settlement in a detached light; and a spirit of 
humorous criticism runs riot in the lighter scenes. The 
drunken butler, accepting the worship and allegiance of 
Caliban and swearing him in by making him kiss the 
bottle, is a fair representative of the idle and dissolute 
men who were shipped to the Virginia Colony. The 
situation of Miranda was perhaps suggested by the 
story of Virginia Dare, granddaughter of Captain John 
White, the first child born in America of English par- 
ents. She was born in 1587 and christened along with 
Manteo, one of the Indians who had visited England 
with Captains Amadas and Barlow, That same year 
she was abandoned, along with the other colonists. In 
1607 when the settlement was next renewed it was 
reported that there were still seven of the English alive 
among the Indians (four men, two boys and one maid). 
The strange girlhood of this one maid, if she were 
Virginia Dare, may well have set Shakespeare's fancy 
working. And the portrait of Caliban, with his affec- 
tionate loyalty to the drunkard, his adoration of valor, 
his love of natural beauty and feeling for music and 
poetry, his hatred and superstitious fear of his task- 
master, and the simple cunning and savagery of his 
attempts at revenge and escape — all this is a compo- 
sition wrought from fragments of travelers' tales, and 
shows a wonderfully accurate and sympathetic under- 
standing of uncivilized man." 

It is a little surprising that Sir Walter Raleigh should 
have selected Jourdan's narrative alone as a source of 
Shakespeare's material, even though the title words 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 171 

"He of Divels" suggests the cry of Ferdinand when he 
leaps overboard, 

Hell is empty, 

And all the devils are here. 

Like the other two tracts it contains an excellent 
account of the storm, too long for quotation, and a good 
account of the island. But Strachy is more elaborate 
and contains one passage not found in the other narra- 
tives which comes much closer to the "Tempest" than 
anything to be found elsewhere. Strachy says: "Dur- 
ing all this time, the heavens look'd so blacke upon us, 
that it was not possible the elevation of the Pole might 
be observed: nor a starre by night, not sunne beame 
by day was to be scene, Onely upon the Thursday 
night Sir George Sommers being upon the watch had 
an apparition of a little round light, like a faint starre, 
trembling, and streaming along with a sparkeling blaze, 
halfe the height upon the Maine Mast and shooting 
sometimes from shroud to shroud, tempting to settle 
as it were upon any foure shrouds; and for three or 
foure houres together, or rather more, halfe the night 
it kept with us; running sometimes along the Maine 
yard; to the very end, and then returning." Strachy 
goes on with much learning to explain the manifesta- 
tion and says, "the Spaniards call it Saint Elmo, and 
have an authentique and miraculous Legend for it." 

This is the way Shakespeare describes it: 

Prospero — Hast thou spirit, 

Performed to every point the tempest that I bade thee? 

Ariel — To every article. 



172 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

I boarded the King's ship ; now on the beak, 

Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, 

I flam'd amazement: Sometimes I'd divide. 

And burn in many places; on the topmast, 

The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, 

Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors 

O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary 

And sight-outrunning were not: the fire, and cracks 

Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune 

Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble. 

Yes, his dread trident shake. 

Conjecture is not strained if we conclude that 
Shakespeare must have read the narratives of the 
wreck of the Sea Venture, for taken in connection with 
the description of the storm, the appearance of Ariel 
as the St. Elmo's fire actually seems to put such a 
belief almost beyond the range of possible coincidence. 
We can readily admit also that there is much ground 
for Sir Walter Raleigh's opinion that "the Tempest' 
is a fantasy of the New World," a fitting close to the 
long series of plays which had found in the old world 
both their plots and their scenery. 

As has been already pointed out, the connection of 
the "Tempest" with the shipwreck of Sir George 
Somers and hence, in the popular mind at least, with 
the Bemaudas was fully shown by Malone, in an elabo- 
rate discussion of the subject more than a century ago. 
Malone's view as to the meteorological, marine and 
geographical sources of the "Tempest," if such unpo- 
etical words may be permitted, was in fact generally 
accepted and unquestioned down to 1902. In that year 



i 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 173 

Dr. Edward Everett Hale, in a short paper which he 
read before the American Antiquarian Society, sug- 
gested another model or original for the picture of 
Prospero's Island set before us in the "Tempest." 

This new candidate for the honor of furnishing 
poetic material to Shakespeare is an island knov/n by 
the singularly unmelodious name of Cuttyhunk, which 
lies off the southern coast of Massachusetts, one of a 
chain of islands at the mouth of Buzzards Bay. Both 
name and place seem incredibly remote from Shake- 
speare and sixteenth century London. When we find, 
however, that the group of islands which includes Cut- 
tyhunk bears the name of Elizabeth and the little town 
existent upon it is called Gosnold we begin, as the chil- 
dren say, to get warm. Elizabeth requires no comment. 
Gosnold the town is named for Bartholomew Gosnold, 
an early explorer and navigator who came to the coast 
of New England in May, 1602, and finally lighted down 
on the island which still commemorates his existence. 
The adventurers liked the island and the captain 
planned to winter there with part of his company. 
They went so far indeed as to build a house, the cellar 
walls of which were still extant not many years ago. 
The men, however, became dissatisfied, those who had 
volunteered to stay lost heart, the plan of wintering on 
the island was given up and on the 18th of June they 
set sail and reached Exmouth on the 23d of July, a 
"bare five weeks," which was a voyage of extraordinary 
celerity for a small saihng vessel. There were three 
accounts of the voyage written and two of them were 



174 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

published in 1602, The first document is a letter from 
Gosnold himself to his father; the second an account of 
the voyage by Gabriel Archer, and the third a "Brief 
and True relation of the Discovery of the North Part 
of Virginia/' by John Brereton.^ It will be observed at 
once that the storm, the St. Elmo's Fire and the date,- 
which connect the Somers' shipwreck so closely with 
the "Tempest," are all lacking in the Gosnold Voyage. 
But in the case of the latter there is a personal connec- 
tion with Shakespeare which may be said to assure us 
of Shakespeare's knowledge of Gosnold and his island. 
Brereton's narration is addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh 
as the head of the movement to Virginia but the finan- 
cial backer of Gosnold was the Earl of Southampton, 
for in his "History of Travails into Virginia," ^ Strachy 
says "He (Southampton) lardgley contributed to the 
furnishing out of a Shipp to be commanded by Captain 
Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain Bartholomew 
Gilbert"; this "shipp" was the Concord which made 
the voyage to the South Coast of New England in 1602. 
Southampton was Shakespeare's friend and in that 
period of intense interest in voyages and discoveries 
we may be sure that Shakespeare was especially famil- 
iar with those which were supported by his patron. 
The storm, as has been said, belongs wholly to Somers' 
shipwreck but when we come to the island and its natu- 

^ All these may be conveniently found in the Collections of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society. Vol. VIII, Third Series, page 68 
and ff. 

^Dr. Hale assigns the "Tempest" to 1603, which is untenable and 
of course an error. 

* Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1849, page 153. 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 175 

ral productions, the case is quite different. The vege- 
table and animal life which we find mentioned in 
allusions by the personages of the "Tempest" agree 
with those described by Gosnold and not with those of 
the Bermudas. 

The following table gives, I believe, a list of the birds 
and animals and vegetable life alluded to in the 
"Tempest": 

Act I — Scene 2 — 

Sycorax confined Ariel in "a cloven pine" 
Prospero: "will rend an oak" 
Caliban: "Water with Berries in't" 
"The fresh springs, brine pits" 
Ariel: "Yellow sands" 

Prospero: "The fresh brook muscles, withered roots 
and husks where the acorn cradled" 

Act II — Scene 1 — 

Gonzalo: "How lush and lusty the grass looks! how 
green!" 

Act II — Scene 2 — 

Springs, Berries 

Caliban: "Where crabs grow" 

Hedgehogs 

Pignuts 

Adders 

Jr.y's nest 

Marmoset 

Filberts 

"Young scamcls from the rocks" 

Act III — Scene 2 — 

Ferdinand: "Some thousands of these logs" (Logs 
constantly referred to for burning) 



176 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

Caliban: "I'll not show him where the quick freshes 
are" (Springs again) 

Act IV — Scene 1 — 

Iris: "Here on this grass plot" 
* Ceres: "This short-grass'd green" 

Act V — Scene 1 — 

Prospero: "Jove's stout oak" 
The Pine and Cedar 



By analyzing this list we reach very easily a coni' 
parison between the sources of 1602 and those of 1610. 

The famous "yellow sands" of Ariel's song tell us 
nothing, for they exist both in the Bermudas and the 
Elizabeth Islands. They are well known in the former 
and nothing can be more brilliant than the sand dunes 
of Cape Cod and the adjacent islands, glittering 
beneath the noontide sun, which greeted Gosnold and 
his companions as they greet our eyes to-day unchang- 
ing and unchanged. "Young scamels" have given 
birth to many pages of discussion, all fruitless. No one 
knows what is referred to and the Oxford Dictionary 
declares the meaning of "scamel" to be uncertain. The 
"jay" although of wide range is a bird characteristic 
of New England. The "Marmoset" ("Marmazet," as 
the folio has it) is found solely in tropical America, is 
not an inhabitant of either group of islands and prob- 
ably appears in the play because Shakespeare hap- 
pened to think of the word and liked it. "Hedgehogs 
and adders" are English and although common to New 
England yield no clear indication of place. "Pignuts," 
or ground-nuts, are mentioned specifically by Gosnold. 



1 



PROSPERO'S ISLx\XD 177 

So also are fruit and hazelnut trees, which cover 
"Crabs," or apples, a Northern fruit, and "filberts" of 
the hazel family. 

It is when we come to the larger features of the natu- 
ral growths of the islands that the resemblance with 
the descriptions of Cuttyhunk in 1602 grow most strik- 
ing. "Logs" are referred to repeatedly in the "Tem- 
pest," and the principal occupation of Gosnold's men 
was cutting sassafras logs, which formed the chief part 
of their cargo when they returned. The oak and pine 
are mentioned more than once, as the table shows. 
Both are distinctly Northern trees, not indigenous to 
the Bermudas. But Brereton says: "This island is full 
of high timbered oaks their leaves thrice so broad as 
ours; cedars, straight & tall; beech, elm, holly &c." 
Cedars are mentioned in the play and in the accounts 
of both groups of islands but the cedar has many varie- 
ties and flourishes in a w4de range of climate. The 
principal trees of the Bermudas are cedars and palmet- 
tos. In all the narratives of 1610 the palmetto figures 
very largely, and if the Bermudas had been in Shake- 
speare's mind when describing Prospero's Island it is 
difficult to understand how he could have omitted the 
palmetto which was the strongest bit of local color at 
his disposal. 

There are two features of the landscape which 
Shakespeare makes conspicuous to us in Prospero's 
Island, the grass and the springs, Caliban's "quick 
freshes." Gonzalo says, "How lush and lusty the grass 
looks! how gi-een!" In Act IV, in the Masque, Iris 



178 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 



says, "Here on this grass plot" — and Ceres, "This 
short-grass'd green." If we turn now to the narratives 
which Shakespeare read we find that Strachy in his 
description of the Bermudas says the soil "is dark, old, 
dry and incapable of any of our commodities & fruits." 
He also says that there are "no rivers or running springs 
of fresh water to be found in any of them" (the Ber- 
mudas). Turn now to Brereton : "Also many springs 
of excellent sweet water and a great standing lake of 
fresh water near the sea-side, which is maintained with 
the springs running exceedingly pleasantly through the 
woody grounds which are very rocky," — very like the 
swamps and standing pools into which Ariel led 
Sebastian and Trinculo. Again Brereton refers to 
"many plain places of grass" and "to meadows very 
large and full of green grass," and he also mentions the 
successful planting of English seeds. All this is in 
direct contrast with the dry, semitropical character of 
the Bermudas and in entire harmony with Prospero's 
Island. All the Somers' narratives emphasize the 
enormous number of wild hogs found in the Bermudas 
upon which the shipwrecked company chiefly lived. 
There is no mention of a hog in the "Tempest." 

Remembering then that all Shakespeare's informa- 
tion about these various islands must have come from 
the contemporary tracts, it is clear that in general 
character of soil, climate and production Prospero's 
Island corresponds with Gosnold's island much better 
than with the Bermudas, which were so attracting pub- 
lic attention at the time of the composition of the 



1 

^s I 



PROSPERO'S ISLAND 179 

"Tempest." It may be fairly said that while it is cer- 
tain that the natural productions of Prospero's Island 
distinctly are not consonant with any description or 
even possibility of the Bermudas, they might well be 
merely English trees and grass and flowers given to the 
scene of the "Tempest" because Shakespeare liked to 
have it so adorned. Yet as he evidently had the New 
World in his mind and was using the narratives of ad- 
venturers for material, the coincidence of the attributes 
of the island of Prospero with those mentioned by Gos- 
nold, in whom Shakespeare had a peculiar tie owing to 
his connection with the Earl of Southampton, is too 
marked to be overlooked. The flowers, grass, trees and 
springs alluded to in the "Tempest" are in the main 
English in character, but they cover very well, very 
exactly even, the chief elements of Archer's and Brere- 
ton's narratives. It is not therefore going very far to 
suppose or to infer that while Shakespeare found his 
material for the storm, the wreck and the St. Elmo's 
fire in Strachy and Jourdan, he reverted to Brereton 
and Gosnold, the friends of his patron Southampton, 
for suggestions as to the island itself because better 
suited to the scene and the purposes he had in mind. 

The inquiries and the theories of Malone and of Dr. 
Hale possess the unfailing interest which attaches to 
any probable or possible discovery of the sources from 
which Shakespeare drew the material which under his 
magic touch was converted into poetry, into imagin- 
ings which would forever delight the world. Wherever 
he may have passed the obscure and the lost come back 



180 PROSPERO'S ISLAND 

to the ligxit. Unri^membered men live again and 
dusty pamphlets telling of forgotten deeds assume a 
vivid interest merely because his eyes may perhaps 
have rested upon them. We must admit that it is after 
all merely speculation and guesswork but possessed 
none the less of an unfailing fascination. Search and 
reason and conjecture as we will, however, the mystery 
of genius is still unexplained and fortunately must 
always remain so. Yet I am personally quite sure that 
I know well where Prospero's Island was, where it is 
indeed at this moment. It lies off the seacoast of 
Bohemia, not far from Illyria where Viola met Mal- 
volio and Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek 
and where Feste is still singing in the moonlit garden : 
the Athens known to Oberon and Titania is within easy 
reach and hard by is the Forest of Arden. It is part 
of that beautiful land where we can escape from the 
cares that infest the day, where sorrows for an hour 
cease to weigh us down, where we forget ourselves, 
where we can sit by Miranda and with hearts full of 
gratitude to the greatest and most beneficent of 
geniuses can join with her in crying out: 

brave new world that has such people in't. 



AFTER THE VICTORY ' 

With the simple ceremonies hallowed by time and 
custom we close to-day our college year. Very different 
this one, be it always remembered, from other years 
which in slow procession have passed by here for nearly 
three centuries. It has been the year of a great victory 
over the forces of tyranny and organized barbarism 
strong in perfected and worshiped materialism and in 
the evil power of science misapplied. To those sons of 
the University who went forth to win this victory and 
turn the wavering scale of battle we would fain do 
honor on this commencement day. 

First we salute the Dead. To them the right of the 
line; to them the place of honor. To them we repeat 
Mrs. Wharton's noble lines: 

O silent and secretly moving throng, 

In your fifty thousand strong, 

Coming at dusk when the wreaths have dropt, 

And streets are empty and music stopt. 

Silently coming to hearts that wait 

Dumb in the door and dumb at the gate, 

And hear your step and fly to your call — 

Every one of you won the war, 

But you, you Dead most of all! 

* Address at Harvard Commencement, June 19, 1919. 

181 



182 AFTER THE VICTORY 

To you in the fulness of time we shall raise here within * 
the precincts of the college you loved a fitting monu- 
ment. It will record your names and no others for the 
glory of sacrificed youth is yours and the high test is 
not that you fell in battle but that you died on the 
field, in the trench, in the hospital, for a great and 
righteous cause at your country's call and for your 
country's sake. 

Next we greet and welcome those who return and try 
in imperfect fashion to express to the world our pride 
in them, our gratitude to them, and our deep thank- 
fulness that they have come back to us laureled with 
service rendered and with victory achieved. 

Deeply grateful are we also to those who, not per- 
mitted by age or disability to serve in the field or on 
the ships, have given all in their power by labor of 
every kind, and by untiring generosity, to help our 
country win the war. From the great leader so recently 
lost,^ whose clear, commanding tones roused the people 
to fight for the right as could no other voice, down to 
the humblest student or graduate who gave his best, 
we offer praise and honor and grateful remembrance. 
Last for the University herself we have in our heart of 
hearts a more ardent love and deeper pride than ever 
before. Under the leadership of its President, unrest- 
ing, devoted, as able as it was energetic, Harvard has 
played again a great part in a great period, one in all 
ways worthy of her storied past. That which is true 
of Harvard is true of all our colleges and universities 

'Theodore Roosevelt, H. U., 1880. 



AFTER THE VICTORY 183 

with hardly an exception. There is no body of men in 
our great American community which offered sacrifice 
and service in larger measure or in greater proportion- 
ate numbers than those who sought or had obtained a 
place in the goodly fellowship of scholars and of edu- 
cated men, a fact full of auspicious omen to the coun- 
try's future. Yet were they after all but a small part 
of the mighty force which took up arms and to all that 
great army alike belongs the future. It is theirs to 
mold and guide. In that future a great responsibility 
falls upon them all, rich and poor, educated and un- 
taught, for all were alike in service and sacrifice. Those 
who gave of their best to help win the war and above 
all those who went overseas and fought will be the 
dominant influence in the years to come. They who 
have offered youth and life to save human freedom lay 
down their arms only to take up the unescapable bur- 
den of responsibility for the country they have de- 
fended and the civilization they have fought to pre- 
serve. Theirs is the leadership, theirs the duty to the 
younger generations which will follow them because it 
is they who have done most for the country in the dark 
hour. That they wdll fulfil their great obligation I have 
no doubt. In what ways they shall fulfil it it is not for 
those who are passing from the stage of life to say. All 
we can do is to bid them godspeed and tell them what 
little we have learned in the hope that in our experi- 
ence they may find some light and help as they move 
along the unknown and untrodden paths which lie 
before them. 



184 AFTER THE VICTORY iH 

I know that this is venturing on dangerous ground, 
that to suggest that we can learn from the past is just { 
now to expose oneself not merely to derision but to a 
shower of names of which ''reactionary" is one of the 
mildest. Yet such are my limitations that I can learn 
nothing from a future which is non-existent. I have 
been thrilled many times by a well-told ghost story. 
But the ghost has always been that of some one who 
had lived and died. The ghost of a future child as yet 
unbegotten, unconceived and unborn, except as a vision 
of what the present generates, seems to present diffi- 
culties and is not as a rule calculated to make any one 
shiver. There remains the past then as a teacher for 
uhere is, strictly speaking, no present. As I utter these 
words the fast flitting moment has dropped into the 
abyss of time and is as far beyond recall as the days of 
Egypt's predynastic kings. Whether you seek your 
lesson from your own experience or from the recorded 
history of mankind you are still turning to the past. 
I see no way to avoid it when we are planning for the 
future, which we hope to make better than what has 
gone before. 

"For at my back I always hear 
Time's winged chariot hurrying near, 
And yonder all before us lie 
Deserts of vast eternity." 

A few days since I read a letter written 4000 years ago 
in Babylon by which it appeared that they had then a 
system of profit-sharing. You can find it in Number 



AFTER THE VICTORY 185 

92 of the Yale collection of translated clay tablets. I 
have strong hopes that in profit-sharing we have a 
beneficent solution of some at least of the gravest social 
and economic problems which confront and perplex us. 
Such, however, is my weakness and my curiosity that 
I admit that I should like to know how the system 
worked in Babylon for it might throw some light on 
what to cherish and what to avoid. I mention this, 
since confession is good for the soul, merely to say that 
what troubles me most about the books and articles 
and speeches by our most advanced thinkers setting 
forth new panaceas and corrective systems for all the 
evils to which flesh is heir, is that they are generally so 
very old, a fact apparently disregarded by their 
authors, who quite properly despise a past which only 
rises up to be troublesome. I am such a heretic in 
regard to what is said to be our best modern thought 
that I think we can learn much from the art and litera- 
ture of Greece and Rome; something of great moral 
systems from the Old Testament, from the thoughts of 
Buddha, from the teachings of Confucius and from the 
Greek philosophers. I even believe that there is much 
good and much wisdom to be found in Aristotle and 
Plato and in all the great writers upon government as 
well as from the statesmen who put theories into prac- 
tise from the days of Pericles to those of Washington 
and Lincoln. But I have no intention of entering upon 
those dim and dusty corridors of days long dead. I 
merely wish to suggest to the men who fought this war 
and to their contemporaries, in whose hands the future 



186 AFTER THE VICTORY 

lies, what seems to me would be a wise course in dealing 
with that future. 

Let me illustrate my meaning by reminding you of 
a story which is only a fairy tale but which has for its 
plot the improvement of the life and conduct of one 
very evil old man. It was written by Charles Dickens, 
antiquated I know as a novelist. He had the misfor- 
tune to be a great romancer and also what is generally 
overlooked a great realist. He possessed nothing more 
than a marvelous imagination, a boundless humor and 
an almost Shakespearian power of creating characters, 
men and women and children. He introduced us to a 
world of people whom we came to know much better 
than the living, who were all about us and who had the 
additional advantage of never dying. He carried 
laughter and joy and delight into the lives of millions 
of human beings; he took them out of themselves and 
brought, for a time at least, surcease of pain and sorrow 
to those who suffered. So I forgive Dickens, steeped 
as he was in nineteenth century optimism, for not 
living up to the most modern canons of correct novel 
writing and go to him for my illustration. In the 
"Christmas Carol" the purpose is to reform a griping, 
cruel, hardened miser and usurer. It is "a ghostly little 
book" as the author called it. The reform is effected 
by showing Scrooge, as you all remember, a series of 
visions: "Christmas Past"; "Christmas Present"; and 
"Christmas Yet to Come." The logical outcome of 
Scrooge's career which is shown to him is set aside by 
his total change of nature and conduct. It is all very 



AFTER THE VICTORY 187 

fanciful and quite impossible and yet every character 
in it is intensely real. But you observ^e that the 
improvement sought is based entirely upon a vivid 
presentation of the past, which teaches the hero what 
to do in the days yet to come and what to avoid. 

This thought I would commend to those to whom the 
future of our country belongs. I fervently hope that 
you, young and coming rulers of the country, will see 
visions and dream dreams; but do not forget that see- 
ing visions is one thing, while being a visionary, espe- 
cially a visionary whose visions and ideals are stage 
properties, is quite another and one much to be 
shunned. 

It is well to remember also that wonderful as we of 
this passing hour are, all wisdom is not possessed by 
us any more than it was by past generations or than it 
will be by those of the future. We are an evolution 
from those who preceded us and heredity and tradi- 
tion, habits and history sway us despite ourselves. The 
dead rule the living in many ways just as we shall 
influence posterity by the operation of natural laws. 
Human nature, impalpable as it is, remains one of the 
most constant of the conditions with which we have 
to deal. Read the Babylonian letters of which I have 
spoken, those relating to business and family affairs, 
and you will find the same emotions, passions and 
desires, the same weaknesses and irritations 4,000 years 
ago which are familiar to every one of us to-day. We 
are prone to think that we are superior to those who 
have gone before because we are the heirs of the ages. 



188 AFTER THE VICTORY 

We are apt to confuse knowledge, the slow accumula- 
tions of past centuries, with original thought. They 
are two widely different things. Knowledge is not only 
power but beyond words valuable, yet it is not original 
thought although it may help and lead to it. There 
is nothing to indicate the slightest inborn intellectual 
superiority on our part over the men who were earliest 
in recorded history. The skulls of the Cro-Magnon 
men twenty thousand years ago were as large, their 
brains as heavy, as those of our own time. In art and 
architecture, in the spacious realms of abstract thought, 
in literature and poetry no one would dare to say that 
we surpassed the Greeks, for we follow, study and imi- 
tate them in all these great fields of intellectual activ- 
ity. In science we have made immense advances, 
building always on the ever-accumulating store of those 
who preceded us and with mechanical advantages 
constantly improving and aiding our work. But in 
pure intellectual force we do not surpass the men who 
first evolved the science of numbers and by mere intel- 
lectual strength devised the system of geometry which 
every schoolboy knows to-day, or those other men who 
by unassisted thought, with no knowledge except that 
which they could gain with their own eyes, developed 
the atomic theory. We take a natural pride in our 
extraordinary inventions, but as evidences of mere men- 
tal power are they not more than rivaled by the wan- 
dering prehistoric men who at a period beyond our ken 
learned to produce and control fire, or by those who 
within the range of recorded history invented the 



AFTER THE VICTORY 189 

wheel, the hollow boat, and, most marvelous of all, sym- 
bols and signs for language starting with pictures and 
cuhiiinating in the arbitrary signs for individual letters? 
Think for a moment where the whole fabric of society, 
the world of man would be without fire, the wheel or 
written language; the first the application of a natural 
force, the last two pure human inventions. In the 
region of mental achievement let us not be overconfi- 
dent or overboastful of our innate superiority to these 
unknown men who knew nothing of what we know but 
unaided and alone thought more and with such mighty 
results, for they had only thought to depend upon. 

The greatest advances originated and made by mod- 
ern, civilized man, as we are pleased to call him, are, we 
hope and believe, in moral standards, in altruism, in 
sympathy with each other, in the effort to diminish 
man's inhumanity to man, for the calm, cold, often 
cruel, indifference of nature and natural processes is 
too often beyond the reach even of modification. In 
these moral directions much has been accomplished 
and yet the accomplishment is only too easily over- 
rated as we know from our recent terrible experience. 
At the close of the last century there was a quite gen- 
eral belief that serious wars would not come again. 
Some doubted and for their skepticism were called 
"jingoes," "war lovers" and ''pessimists." But almost 
every one felt sure that if war should again break upon 
us its horrors would be reduced to the lowest point 
and that by the conventions of Geneva and The Hague, 
the sufferings and cruelties of past wars would be 



190 AFTER THE VICTORY 

largely eliminated. Suddenly the great war came. 
Germany, esteemed by all a highly civilized nation, 
entered deliberately upon a course of savage cruelty 
worse than any ever imagined because it was carefully 
organized. The world had known barbarism before, 
human history was full of it, but never had anything 
fallen upon men comparable to the scientific, wholesale 
atrocities carried on by Germany by which not merely 
individuals but entire communities were subjected to 
the most hideous sufferings and the most utter ruin 
which highly trained minds entirely destitute of I J 
humanity could devise. It was appalling to see how 
thin was the varnish of civilization in one of the great 
western nations, how close the wolf in man was to the 
surface which looked so fair. We were nearer in reality 1 1 
to primitive man than any one had imagined. As for 
treaties and laws, they went in the fierce flame of war 
as quickly as the dry leaves of autumn when a spark 
falls among them and were of as little worth. The 
beautiful scheme of making mankind suddenly virtu- 
ous by a statute or a written convention was once more 
exhibited in all its weakness. It is a melancholy reflec- 
tion that the best assurance of the future peace of the 
world lies in the destruction of the German war power, 
which is worth all it cost. 

Once again comes the harsh lesson that all the 
advances of man in morals and in altruism, in charity 
and gentler manners and purer laws, all that really 
remain with us come slowly, never in a moment or in a 
watch in the night. The recognition of this truth is 



AFTER THE VICTORY 191 

the secret of those who have done most to help their 
fellow men. An English poet of the light-hearted, 
easy-going, pleasure-loving eighteenth century wrote: 

"Who breathes, must suffer ; and who thinks must mourn ; 
And he alone is blessed, who ne'er was born." 

We must face courageously the truth of the first line 
but the second is a black and helpless pessimism which 
simply spells utter ruin. For we must be here on earth 
and if we can not wholly avoid or prevent human suf- 
fering we can at least strive to reduce its vast aggregate 
during the brief life which is our portion. If now at 
last I turn to the past for a practical suggestion I shall 
try to palliate my doing so by going but a very short 
distance within its precincts. 

The object to which you soldiers of the war, masters 
of the future, must address yourselves, to which all 
right-thinking men and women ought to address them- 
selves, is to reduce so far as possible the sum total of 
human suffering and unhappiness. There is much that 
can be done. It is possible for us by steady effort to 
secure, m large measure at least, to all men and women 
equality of opportunity; but we must not forget that 
while men are born into the world differing in muscles 
and in mind, there is no form of statute or convention 
which can secure to them equality of results in their life 
journey. Let us not endanger the possible with its 
chance of hope and help by vainly striving for a glitter- 
ing impossibility. W^e can do much, I say, and it is to 



192 AFTER THE VICTORY 

you, you coming generations, led by the men who 
fought the war, to make these advances. But you must 
ever remember that the only advances which have been 
maintained and kept secure are those which were made 
slowly. Before your very eyes, you have the warning. 
It is there in Russia. In Russia is exhibited at this 
moment, not in the musty volumes of history, but there 
even as you look the awful results of a scheme which 
its authors pretended and their dupes believed would 
make all men happy in a moment. Designing adven- 
turers, men without a country, convinced an ignorant 
people that if they were allowed to abolish all property, 
to take from men the right to own what they had 
earned and saved, and to wreck civilization, all would 
be well. They have applied their panacea. Instead 
of diminishing human suffering they have caused 
greater misery to more human beings than the war 
itself. They have vastly increased the sum of human 
suffering. All tyrannies are evil things, but the tjrr- 
anny of disorder and anarchy is the worst of all possible 
tyrannies. The leaders support themselves and live 
in comfort and maintain an army by plundering not 
merely the rich but the whole community down to the 
farmer who has been a little more successful than his 
neighbor. I need not enlarge upon the result. The 
greatest contemner of the past could not charge me 
here with bringing forward examples which are no 
longer applicable to our purified and improved human 
nature and to our greater wisdom. These things are 
happening now, at this moment, even as I speak. No 



AFTER THE VICTORY 193 

one knows, no one will ever know how many thousands 
of farmers, workers, shopkeepers, innocent people have 
perished by murder, by pestilence and famine, since the 
present Bolshevik rule was established in Russia. In 
letters of fire this Russian scene says to us who are 
passing from the stage and to you who are stepping 
forward to take control of the American destinies, 
"This way at least lies ruin." Let us labor then in 
every way to help to improve the distribution of the 
earnings of mankind, to lift up the poor and suffering, 
to make life better and happier for all the children of 
men. But what is happening in Russia must convince 
every one that the method of Lenme and Trotzky, of 
murder and pillage, is not the way to reach the noble 
and humane results we all desire. Turn your eyes then 
from that stricken country and let them rest upon your 
own. Does it not say to you in tones which can not be 
misunderstood, "Whatever our shortcomings, whatever 
our mistakes, the principles of ordered liberty which 
our fathers founded and which we maintained have 
brought a greater degree of happiness to the average 
man and woman in the United States than in any other 
country," and if we advance along those lines, ever 
progressing and broadening, as we come to understand 
the situation better we shall lessen ever more and more 
the great sum of human poverty, unhappiness and suf- 
fering? Does not this contrast between the United 
States and Russia at this moment tell every man and 
woman, old and young, in this country that here under 
our methods the best mitigation and solution, yet 



194 AFTER THE VICTORY 

attained, of the suffering and sorrow of humanity are 
to be found? It comes slowly no doubt, but it comes. 
Does not the United States tell us trumpet- tongued 
that the country for which this younger generation has 
died and for which they are going to live and rule is 
still the best hope for mankind and that it must be pre- 
served by them as their fathers preserved and saved 
it in the days that are gone? If you would be as you 
have been of the largest service to mankind, be Ameri- 
cans first, Americans last, Americans always. From 
that firm foundation you can march on. Abandon it 
and chaos will come as when the civilization of Roi^ie 
crashed down in irremediable ruin. 



4 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH ' 

We meet here to-day because tlie calendar tells us 
that three hundred years have elapsed since a small 
band of English men and women landed at this spot 
and set themselves to work to conquer the wilderness 
and found a state. Three centuries are but an indis- 
tinguishable point in the vast tracts of time dimly 
marked by geologic periods in the history of our planet. 
They are a negligible space in the thousands of years 
which have passed since man first appeared on the 
earth. Even within the narrow limits of recorded his- 
tory they fill but a trifling place if we are concerned 
only with chronology. We live, however, in a compara- 
tive world. Geologically and even racially three cen- 
turies are not worth computing, but to the men and 
nations who have been concerned in the making of 
what is called modern history, dating from the begin- 
ning of the Renaissance in Italy, they extend very 
nearly to the visible horizon. If we go a step further 
and measure by man's own life and by the brief exist- 
ence of the doers of the historic deed as well as of those 
who now try to recall the great event, our three centu- 
ries as we glance backward, like Shelley's "lone and 
level sands," stretch far away. In the familiar fable 

^Address at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Three Hundredth 
Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, December 21, 1920. 

195 



196 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

of the insects, whose term of life is but a day and whose 
most aged members are those who totter on to sunset, 
twelve hours is the test of time, and to them three hun- 
dred years would seem like the seons through which the 
earth has passed during its unresting journey in stellar 
space. After all, our only measure must be the lives 
of the men who acted and of the men who celebrate, 
and to us the Pilgrims seem remote indeed. The sol- 
emn dignity of the past is as much theirs as if they had 
been those of the human race who drew the pictures in 
the caves of the Dordogne, or laid deep the foundations 
of the Pyramids. In any event, whether the three hun- 
dred years are absolutely a short period or relatively a 
long one the number of the centuries is not alone suffi- 
cient to determine their right to make men pause and 
consider them for a few moments at the date which 
marks their end. 

There is no more reason to celebrate the mere pas- 
sage of time than to rejoice over the precession of the 
equinoxes. The value and meaning to be found in 
the ending of any artificial, calendar-made period exist 
only in the deed or the event which in some fashion 
has lived on in the minds of men through one or 
three or ten centuries. The act of commemoration 
or celebration must be justified by its subject. In 
the waters which wash these shores is found a crus- 
tacean familiar to us all as the horseshoe^ — or horsefoot 
— crab. He is the only one of his family who survives, 
although they are by no means a short-lived race. 
He and his are found as fossils in the coal measures 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 197 

and are closely related to the trilobites who apparently 
swarmed in the Paleozoic period. His anniversaries 
must be reckoned by the million but no one celebrates 
them. He is a curious instance of the survival of the 
fittest to survive and makes one doubt a little the moral 
value of that great law. But we consign him to science 
and do not commemorate him despite the enormous 
tract of time over which he has passed. He has merely 
lived. Scott's principle of the "crowded hour of glori- 
ous life" which is worth "an age without a name" is, 
I always think, the touchstone which will tell us 
whether a trilobite or a man, a deed or an event is 
current gold indeed. Thus shall we discover the real 
character of the event for the sake of which we turn 
aside from the noisy traffic of the moment in order that 
we may look upon it and meditate upon its meaning. 
In this way we shall learn whether we celebrate some- 
thing of world effect or an incident of the past which 
merely touches the memories or the pride of a 
neighborhood. 

Can there be any question that the landing of those 
whom we affectionately call "Pilgrmis" upon the edge 
of the North American wilderness meets the test of 
Scott's famous lines? I believe that, among those who 
take the trouble to think, there can be but one answer 
to this inquiry. Let us, however, go a step further and 
apply certain other tests. 

Seventy years ago a distinguished English historian 
published a book entitled "Fifteen Decisive Battles of 
the World," a work of authority which still holds its 



198 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

place in literature. If Sir Edward Creasy had lived 
until 1920 he would undoubtedly have slightly in- 
creased the number of his battles, but that would in 
no wise affect the leading impression suggested by his 
book. The first thought awakened by the title as well 
as by the book itself is one of astonishment that an 
expert student and historian, surveying the long story i 
of the well-nigh perpetual fighting which has darkened 
and reddened the movement of mankind across the 
centuries, could in 1851 find only fifteen battles to 
which he felt, after much consideration and weighing 
of testimony, that he could properly apply the word 
"decisive." Only fifteen battles out of the thousands, 
alas, which have been fought by men were selected by 
a competent judge as having by their result settled the 
fate of nations or permanently affected the history of 
the world. 

As with battles so it is with other events great and 
small, the creatures of each succeeding day which, ever 
since man has attempted to make any record of him- 
self and his doings, have gone whirling past in countless 
swarms only to be engulfed in the relentless ocean of 
time. At the moment they all, even the most minute, 
were of meaning and concern to some one, perhaps to 
many more than one among the children of men, and 
they are, nearly all, as dead and forgotten as those 
whom they grieved or gladdened at the instant when 
they flitted by. Almost infinitely small is the propor- 
tion which have even found a record, whether carved 
on stone or set down in books and manuscripts. Of 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 199 

those thus preserved, how few, how very few, stand out 
clearly to us across the ages or the centuries as decisive, 
unforgetable, because they determined the course of 
history and gave a lasting direction to the fortunes of 
mankind. They rise before us as we try to look back 
over the dim, receding past like distant mountain peaks 
where the rose of sunset lingers, or solitary light-towers 
set above reefs and shoals in lonely seas. 

When we approach an anniversary the first question 
which confronts us then is whether it holds a place 
among the rare events which may be called decisive, or 
is memorable only to those who celebrate it. The 
inquiry, as a rule, is easily answered by a little reflec- 
tion, and the great and decisive events of history are 
usually beyond dispute. No one, for example, can 
question that Greek thought has profoundly influenced 
all western civilization for twenty-five hundred years, 
and therefore the repulse of the Persians, the spread of 
the Greek colonies to the westward, the conquests of 
Alexander reaching to the borders of India, which gave 
opportunity and scope to Greek culture, were in the 
largest sense decisive events in the histoiy of the world. 
There can be no doubt that the battle of Chalons, 
which saved western Europe from the savage hordes 
of Asia, and the battle of Tours, which arrested the 
advance of Islam, were in the highest degree "decisive" 
events. Seven hundred years ago John of England 
signed at Runnymede a certain document known as the 
Magna Carta. The last anniversary came in June, 
1915, in the midst of the war with Germany, when 



200 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

men had no time to give to the celebration of past 
events, and yet the signing of the great charter was 
quietly but duly and fittingly noticed and commemo- 
rated, both in England and the United States. Even 
in that hour of peril and confusion people did not for- 
get what had happened seven hundred years before, 
because on that June day a deed was done which has 
affected the development of the English-speaking peo- 
ple down to the present moment, and thus has been 
decisive in world history. The endless and fruitless 
wars of England in her attempt to conquer France, 
which fill the old chronicles, have faded away, and the 
signing of a document remains still vivid to men. It is 
equally certain that the voyage of Columbus was an 
event, momentous alike to the Old World and the New, 
and the great adventurer has two continents as his 
monument. 

I can hear, as I give these few illustrations of the 
principle I seek to establish, the peevish, meaningless 
objection that if Miltiades had not won Marathon, if 
Alexander had never existed, if Aetius had failed at 
Chalons and Charles Martel at Tours, if the Barons of 
England had not controlled King John, if Columbus 
had never reached America, somebody else would have 
done all these things, for the time was ripe and they 
would surely have come to pass. Envy and jealousy 
are not confined to the present. In one form or another 
they reach across the abysm of time, and no honored 
grave is safe from their creeping attack. Moreover, the 
hypotheses of history attractive to certain minds are 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 201 

often ingenious, occasionally amusing and suggestive, 
almost invariably profitless and unremunerative. The 
"might have beens" have no claim to celebration. 
That which alone is entitled to this high honor is "what 
was." The actual deed and the men who did the deed 
which "breaks the horizon's level line," not those who 
did not do it, even if they thought about it, alone 
J deserve honor, reverence and commemoration. 

Can we, then, justly place what happened here at 
Plymouth, and the men and women to whom we owe 
the great act, in the small, high class of "decisive" 
events due to the actual doers of great deeds? Clearly, 
I think we can. Jamestown and Plymouth were the 
cornerstones of the foundations upon which the great 
fabric of the United States has been built up, and the 
United States is to-day one of the dominant factors in 
the history and in the future of the world of men. The 
nation thus brought into being has affected the entire 
course of western civilization, and largely helped to 
determine its fate, which, shaken and clouded by the 
most desolating of wars, is now trembling in the bal- 
ance. Saratoga stands with Marathon and Waterloo in 
Sir Edward Creasy's book as one of the decisive battles 
of the world. There is no need to go further to find 
the meaning in history of what the Pilgrims did. 

I shall not attempt to rehearse the story of the little 
band of men and women who landed here on a Decem- 
ber day three hundred years ago. It is as famihar to 
our ears as a twice-told tale, as ready on our lips as 
household words. It has awakened the imagination of 



202 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

poet and painter and novelist. It has engaged the 
attention and the research of antiquarians and writers 
of history. Societies have been formed to trace out the 
descendants of the Pilgrims, and those who can claim 
them as ancestors would not change their lineage for 
any that could be furnished by the compilers of 
peerages. 

They were humble folk, for the most part, these 
passengers of the Mayflower — handicraftsmen, fishers, 
plowmen, with some wise leaders possessed of educa- 
tion and who had held established position in their 
native land. But the fact is too often overlooked that 
these same humble folk were the offspring of a great 
period filled with the exuberant, adventurous spirit of 
youth, moving and stirring in every field of human 
thought and human activity. They were the contem- 
poraries of Raleigh, of Shakespeare and of Bacon, and 
were the true children of their wonderful age, with all 
its hopes and daring courage strong within them. We 
know how they started, imbued and uplifted by the 
deep resolve to worship God in their own way, which to 
them meant more than all the world beside could offer. 
We see them leaving the villages of Yorkshire and East 
Anglia, driven back from the shore, arrested, harried by 
soldiers, finally making their way to Holland, settling 
in Amsterdam and then in Leyden. A few years pass 
in peace and quiet, but the thought that they are losing 
their nationality and their language preys upon them, 
and they prayerfully and very solemnly determine that 
they will preserve these precious possessions by seeking 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 203 

a home in the New World, and still keep secure the 
opportunity to worship God in the way that is their 
own. It is a terrifying adventure. Some will not face 
it, stay behind, are absorbed in the population of 
Holland, and disappear from history. But others have 
a finer courage, and go forth determined henceforth to 
fill a place not to be forgotten by coming generations. 
Through many difficulties they procure two ships, the 
Speedwell at Delftshaven, the famous Mayflower at 
Southampton, and slowly make their way down the 
channel to Plymouth. Further delays and obstacles 
surround them. The Speedwell is forced to return, and 
it is not until September 16, on our reckoning, that the 
Mayflower sets out alone upon her long journey. More 
than two months are occupied by the voyage across the 
stormy waters of the North Atlantic and in searching 
the coast for a landing. It is the 21st of November 
when they disembark at Provincetown. Then comes a 
month of exploring the neighboring coast, the signing 
of the compact, and the landing which we have elected 
to celebrate on December 21. During the shortest days, 
at the worst season, on the edge of the unbroken wil- 
derness they planted themselves by the seaside, and the 
great experiment began. Famine and disease met them 
at the threshold. Half the people died during that 
cruel winter. But they held on, clinging desperately to 
the land which they had chosen, and the grip then 
taken was never broken. Never after that first awful 
winter, marked forever by the clustering graves on 
Cole's Hill, did they go backward. There was still 



204 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

much suffering to be endured, many dangers to be 
faced, perils from the Indians, failure of support, 
betrayals, even, by those in England who should have 
sustained them. But they held on and advanced. It 
was a painfully slow advance, but always the move- 
ment was forward. As told in Bradford's truly won- 
derful journal and in "Winslow's Relation" it is an epic 
poem written in seventeenth century English, in the 
language of Shakespeare and Milton, because the 
authors had no other. For ten years they were the 
only English settlement north of the Chesapeake, — the 
only settlement m that vast northern region which rose 
high above the level of a trading post or fishing sta- 
tion. They farmed their lands, plowed and fished and 
traded; but they also established their church and 
worshiped God in their own fashion, founded a state 
and organized an efficient government. They were 
masters of their fate; they had begun the conquest of 
the wilderness; their march was ever onward and their 
hold was never relaxed. Ten years passed, and then 
in 1629 and 1630 came Endicott and Winthrop to 
Salem and Boston. The powerful Puritan organization 
with its twenty thousand immigrants in the next 
decade had arrived. The perils of Plymouth were over. 
Henceforth they were sheltered and overshadowed by 
their strong neighbors and friends on Massachusetts 
Bay. In 1643 they joined the New England Confed- 
eration, and their history was merged in that of the 
other larger colonies. Before the centuiy closed, the 
existing fact was embodied in law, and Plymouth 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 205 

became part of Massachusetts. But what the Pilgrims 
had achieved in those first ten years could never be 
absorbed in the work of other men. The deed they 
did, the victory they had won alone upon the shores 
of New England, stand out monumentally upon the 
highway of history for after ages to admire and rever- 
ence, and it was all their own. I shall say no more at 
this point of the Pilgrim of Plymouth as he lived on 
earth. I shall not now or later indulge in needless 
eulogy, still less shall I seek to draw his frailties from 
their dread abode. My only purpose is to try to deter- 
mine what his history has been since the grave closed 
over him; what he has accomplished among the gen- 
erations which have followed him. 

That which now concerns us most, as it seems to me, 
is first, to know what has come from the work of the 
Pilgrims who thus influenced history and affected the 
fate of western civilization as they fought for life and 
struggled forward and suffered and died on the spot we 
call Plymouth. Next, and more important, we must 
consider just what they were, these Pilgrims, and what 
meaning they had for our predecessors and now have 
for us. Above all, let us find out if possible what les- 
sons they teach which will help us m the present and 
aid us to meet the imperious future ever knocking at 
the door. Nations which neglect their past are not 
worthy of a future, and those which live exclusively 
upon their past have the marks of decadence stamped 
upon them. We must look before and after, and from 
the doers of high deeds, from the makers of the rare 



206 THE riLGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

events decisive in history, we must seek for light and 
leading, for help in facing the known and in shaping 
as best we may the forces which govern the unknown. 

Before we undertake to summarize the Pilgrims 
themselves, and try rightly to judge their qualities of 
mind and character, I think we can best open the way 
to them and to their meaning to-day by considering 
the movement of opinion in regard to them and what 
they did. In this way alone, I think, shall we be able 
to see them in proper perspective and with a due sense 
of proportion. 

The realization of the importance of the Pilgrims' 
work and of their place in history came but slowly in 
England ; not, in fact, until Macaulay and Carlyle put 
the Puritans into their true position in the period they 
so largely controlled. Yet the Plymouth settlers them- 
selves had deep down in their hearts a sense of the 
magnitude of what they were doing, which is at once 
strange and impressive. I must turn as usual to the 
imagination of the poet to find fit expression of what 
I mean. When Lowell makes Concord Bridge "break 
forth and prophesy" he speaks first of the earliest time, 
of the^ — 

Brown foundhn' o' the woods, whose baby bed 

Was prowled roun' by the Injun's cracklin' tread, 

An' who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains, 

Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains, 

Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain 

With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane. 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 207 

There we have in a few noble and echomg words an 
arresting impression which seizes upon the attention of 
any one who studies carefully the journals and corre- 
spondence of the founders of Plymouth. Gradually as 
we read there comes sharply outlined before us visible 
through the mist of details concerning supplies and 
ships, money difficulties and trading ventures, Indians 
and the farms and fortunes of the little colony from 
day to day, a vivid picture of the "stern men with 
empires in their brains." It is not set down in black 
and white, but it is clearer than anything else, to those 
who look into it with considerate eyes, that these men, 
the leaders especially, had a profound consciousness 
that they were engaged in a vastly greater task than 
establishing a colony. They felt in the depths of their 
being that they were laying the foundation of an 
empire — of a mighty nation. The outlines were all 
dim, the details did not exist, but the great, luminous 
vision of a picture they would never see was there, and 
they beheld it as they gazed upward, looking far 
beyond the dark forest, the unbroken solitude and the 
wastes of ocean at their gates. We cannot escape the 
belief that these Pilgrims in their hearts were confi- 
dent that, as expressed in the verse of a true poet ^ of 
our own time, what they said and did would yet be 
heard "like a new song that waits for distant years." 
We seem, in the words of their great contemporary 
then so recently dead, to catch a glimpse, in these poor 
struggling people of the Mayflower, of — 

^ Edwin Arlington Robinson. 



208 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

The prophetic soul 
Of the wide world dreaming of things to come. 

The vision faded when the pioneers passed away — 
the eponymous and autochthonous heroes, as the 
Greeks would have called them if they had come up out 
of the darkness where myths are born and history never 
written. 

And there is something besides this dream of empire 
which, as we study the ancient faded records, leaps out 
like Shakespeare's "golden word" and sinks deep into 
our consciousness. This was the quick and strong 
attachment of these men and women to the untamed 
land which had greeted them so harshly and which 
made to them no glittering promises. Why did this 
happen? Whence came this feeling for this New 
World, as unknown to them as to their ancestors, des- 
titute alike of traditions and of the tender associations 
which bind men to the country of their birth? They 
were loyal to their race, to their language, to England 
and to England's King. But from the J5rst their love 
and hope were fastened here in America. The reason 
is not, I think, far to seek. They had crossed the ocean 
primarily that they might be able to worship God as 
seemed best in their own eyes, but they also meant to 
free themselves from the Old World where oppression 
had been their portion, and henceforth know no home 
but America. They meant to be Americans, although 
they never probably used the word, and to have their 
home here and make this country first in their thoughts 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 209 

as in their affections. However much they suffered 
they seem never to have repined. They meant to leave 
England which they loved, and Holland which had so 
kindly treated them, and they cast no longing, lingering 
look behind. In them we can see that even in those 
first bleak years the passion for America had cast out 
the passion for Europe, and in the process of the years 
grew ever stronger, more compelling, more overmaster- 
ing, as colonies became states and states a nation, rising 
unhelped but surely to the perilous heights of world 
power. 

These deep but unspoken and undefined emotions 
and aspirations of the Pilgrims did not sweep on 
through the succeeding years with ever-gathering 
strength. The waves sank and rose; the halts came in 
the onward march as is common in the progress of 
forces which must travel far before they ultimately 
move the world. This was apparent even in the days 
which followed the gradual passing away of the Pil- 
grims. Success and security enlarged the daily inter- 
ests of life, hard and simple as it was; worldly 
hopes grew stronger; the children ceased to dream the 
dreams or see clearly the visions vouchsafed to their 
fathers, — to those who had made existence in America 
possible, — but the spirit of the first comers was never 
lost, and deep down in their very being guided and led 
the succeeding generations. 

The hundredth anniversary of the landing came and 
went, so far as we can learn, quite unnoticed and 
unmarked. The far-flung aspirations of the beginners 



210 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

had gone ; the backward, penetrating glance of history, 
of the seekers of the buried treasures of the past, had 
not yet come. Half a century more was to elapse 
before the fact that here in Plymouth something had 
once happened which merited celebration and made 
such demand for the outward signs of remembrance as 
to insist upon a visible manifestation. In January, 
1769, a club was started by twelve young men of 
Plymouth, and in the following December they decided 
to have a dinner on December 22 in commemoration 
of the landing of the Pilgrims. Accordingly, upon that 
day there was a procession, and then a dinner was 
eaten and toasts were given in honor of the leaders 
among the founders of the settlement. The following 
year, on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, the 
people here again held a celebration, and this time they 
had an oration described in the record as "words spoken 
with modesty and firmness" by Edward Winslow, and 
there was also a poem by Alexander Scammell. These 
commemorations went on through the years of the 
Revolution, until 1780, and then came an unexplained 
gap of twelve years until 1793, when the celebration of 
the anniversary was again renewed, and continued 
thereafter with the omission only of 1799. The cere- 
monies expanded with the years, and a discourse by the 
clergyman and an address by some outsider of distinc- 
tion became recognized accompaniments of the pro- 
ceedings. Politics entered into the speech making, and 
the toasts and the partakers in them made it very clear 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 211 

that while they celebrated as Americans they did not 
forget that they were also Federalists. 

In Boston the commemorations of the Pilgrims sug- 
gested in 1774 began with a formal and public celebra- 
tion in 1798. There were an elaborate dinner, a very 
long list of toasts, including many which were both 
contemporary and political, much speech making, and 
an ''Elegant and Patriotic Ode" by Mr. Thomas Paine 
was duly sung, doubtless with ardent enthusiasm. 

From these modest beginnings in Plymouth and 
Boston the celebrations of what came to be called 
"Forefathers' Day" multiplied beyond enumeration, 
following the migrations of the Mayfloiver descendants 
and of the children of New England across the conti- 
nent, until now m ever-increasing numbers the anni- 
versary of the landing in 1620 is marked and celebrated 
with each recurring year from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. The deeds of the little band of hunted men 
and women who fled from England to Holland and 
thence to the New World have come into their own. 
They are, in the words of Henry V on the eve of Agin- 
court, "freshly remembered," and have taken a place in 
the thoughts of uncounted thousands in a manner per- 
mitted only to an event decisive in the world's history. 
It would be quite impossible to trace or even to count 
these endless acts of commemoration, interesting as it 
would be to show' in this way the development of public 
opinion about the results of the Plymouth landing as 
the accumulating years made the scattered little settle- 
ments of the Atlantic coast into a great nation, and 



212 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

ever threw into higher relief the achievement of the 
followers and companions of Bradford and Winslow. 
It would be hardly less impossible to review the 
addresses made by well-known men upon the coming 
of the MayjlCLcer, and analyze and consider the criti- 
cal conclusions and the thoughts thus expressed. In 
the roll of those who have spoken gravely and seriously 
about the foundation of Plymouth is included a very 
large representation of the men who in our history have 
attained high distinction in the pulpit, at the bar, in 
literature and in public life. You will find there ora- 
tors and poets, philosophers and historians, Presidents, 
Governors of states, Senators and leaders of the House 
of Representatives. It is an imposing list not with'out 
significance. Limited by time and space I shall call up 
to remembrance only one past celebration and only one 
speaker who made that particular day famous, and who 
was at once interpreter of the past and prophet of the 
future. That occasion and the man who then spoke 
stand out very distinctly and very radiantly against 
the background of the dead years, charged with much 
deep meaning to all who consider them and above all 
competitors however eminent. 

In 1820, on the two hundredth anniversary of the 
landing, Daniel Webster delivered what has always 
been known as the "Plymouth Oration." We are apt, 
unconsciously I believe, in lookmg backward to the 
days which are gone, to think of a century as a whole, 
and if we are trying to picture to ourselves at a given 
moment a certain man, we are prone to treat him as if 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 213 

his life was at that instant complete as we now know 
it. If we are to judge rightly and really draw forth the 
lesson we perchance are seeking we must force our- 
selves to remember just what sort of a world it was at 
the historic moment which is in our thoughts, and not 
confuse the actors or the occasion with after years 
familiar in history to us but an unknown future to 
them. 

The year 1820 began with the death of George III, 
an old man, blind, demented, almost forgotten, a 
pathetic figure not without suggestion to the moralist. 
He had come to the throne in 1760; he was the King of 
the elder and younger Pitt, of the Foxes, father and 
son, of Burke and Johnson, of Reynolds and Garrick 
and Goldsmith. He was an eighteenth century King. 
George IV, of unsavory memory, a child of the 
eighteenth century, was King of England when 
Webster spoke at Plymouth, and a Bourbon was reign- 
ing in France as Louis XVIII. Europe just then had 
gone back to the old days and the old systems, and the 
French Revolution seemed to those in power like an 
evil dream. Metternich, at least, and many others 
were convinced that the Revolution was a nightmare 
which had passed as a watch in the night, and that 
everything was henceforth to go on in the good old 
way. The successful revolt of the American colonies 
had been enacted before their eyes and taught them 
nothing. From the uprising of France and from the 
Napoleonic wars they had learned little more, fright- 
ful as the shock had been, for had they not finally 



214 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

defeated Napoleon and crushed democracy at Water- 
loo? They were unable to see that the failure of the 
French Revolution was only apparent. The force of 
the Revolution had passed into the hands of a great 
military genius who betrayed its principles and sought 
merely to erect on the ruins of the old autocracies a 
worldwide despotism of his own. France under 
Napoleon went to defeat at Waterloo, but the revolu- 
tion which France had wrought was not conquered ; the 
work the French had done a quarter of a century 
earlier could not be undone any more than the Ameri- 
can colonies could be returned to England. The 
Democratic movement was not crushed on the plains 
of Waterloo, but was only freed from its most danger- 
ous foe, born and equipped in its own household. In 
fact, it was the uprising of the people in the countries 
conquered by Napoleon which alone enabled banded 
Europe to defeat him, Metternich and his emperors 
and kings mistook a lull in the storm for a lasting calm. 
They did not realize that they were in the center of 
the cyclone, and that the other side must yet be trav- 
ersed. They found it out in 1830 and 1848, but in 1820 
they believed that all was well, and that the old system 
would go on better than ever and for an indefinite 
period. Had they not established their Holy Alliance 
to control all nations and put an end to every attempt 
to assert the rights of the people? They did not under- 
stand the portents even then to be seen in the world 
about them. England in those very years was begin- 
ning to awaken to the perils of the Alliance called Holy, 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 215 

and was preparing to leave it. Far-away states in 
South America were insisting that they would not 
return to the domination of Spain, and presently a 
voice was to be heard from the northern continent of 
the New World declaring, with England in full sympa- 
thy, that the Old World was not to control the New. 
Very shocking all this to Metternich and Polignac and 
the Czar of Russia and other right-thinking persons, 
and yet not to be gainsaid. Still nothing was learned, 
and in 1820 the worst qualities of the eighteenth cen- 
tury seemed to have returned to power. 

In that same year, moreover, no alterations of deep 
effect upon the daily affairs of men had yet arrived. A 
httle steamboat had made its way up the Hudson; oth- 
ers were appearing, but sails stiU carried the world's 
traffic over the wide oceans. The first operating steam 
railroad was still ten years in the future, and twenty 
years were to elapse before the coming of the telegraph, 
— the two discoveries which were to make a greater 
change in human environment than anything which 
had happened since the wheel, the hollow boat and the 
alphabetical signs for language had broken upon the 
world of men. People still relied upon horses and upon 
the winds for travel, and upon written letters for com- 
munication when separated. The modes and habits of 
life were still substantially the same as in the colonial 
days, and change is finally brought home to men only 
when it actually touches the routine and habits of 
their daily lives. As its restorers conceived it, the 
eighteenth century was really dead, but the outside 



216 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

manifestations which belonged to it were as yet unal- 
tered, and it was with an eighteenth century atmos- 
phere about him that Webster rose to speak at 
Plymouth, as much so as the coach which had brought 
him to his destination was a vehicle of the same period. 
Stage coach and atmosphere were alike on the very 
verge of disappearance ; only ten years separated them 
from George Stephenson's railroad and from certain 
July days of 1830 in Paris, which Sir Walter Besant 
declared marked the real ending of the previous cen- 
tury, although the calendar had disposed of it long 
before. 

But calendars are arbitrary things and do not always 
register all the facts correctly. It is with the real, the 
underlying conditions that we are concerned when we 
try to revive the bygone scene witnessed in Plymouth 
in 1820 in order that we may see with the eyes of 
imagination the man who made that particular anni- 
versary memorable. 

The people who gathered here to listen to the orator 
of the day did not look upon the Webster so familiar 
to us, who looms so large during the succeeding th^ty 
years of the country's history. In 1820 Webster was 
only thirty-eight years old. He stood before his audi- 
ence in the very prime of his early manhood. The 
imposing presence, the massive head, the wonderful 
voice, the dark, deep-set eyes burning, as Carlyle said, 
with a light like duU anthracite furnaces, the mouth 
''accurately closed," were then as they were to the end 
arresting, and held the attention of all who looked and 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 217 

listened. But the face was still smooth, the deep lines 
and tragic aspect of the latest portraits were lacking. 

The hope of unaccomplished years 
Seemed large and lucid round his brow. 

But they were "unaccomplished years," and one 
can not help wondering how many then present even 
dimly guessed what he who spoke to them was to be, 
and to what heights he was destined to climb. In 1820 
his public life had consisted of four years' service as 
member of Congress from New Hampshire, service dis- 
tinguished but not extraordinary. He had removed to 
Boston and there begun his practise at the bar of 
Massachusetts. His second period in the House, his 
long years in the Senate, his service as Secretary of 
State were all in the future. Ten years were to pass 
before he reached his zenith in the reply to Hayne, — 
one of those rare speeches which has become an insep- 
arable part of a nation's history. The speech to the 
jury in the White murder case was yet to be made, and 
that which he was to deliver at Plymouth was the first 
of the occasional addresses which so added to his fame, 
and which generations of schoolboys were fated to 
recite. In his profession alone had he already given 
absolute proof of his future eminence. His argument 
in the Dartmouth College case had put him in the front 
rank at the American bar, but the world at large prob- 
ably had little knowledge of the closing sentences of 
that argument, which must have revealed to those who 
heard him and to the few outsiders of penetrating and 



218 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

critical judgment that a great orator as well as a great 
lawyer was before them. If the Plymouth audience did 
not understand, and it was hardly possible that they 
should, that they were about to hear one of the great 
orators of all time they must have suspected, when 
Mr. Webster closed, that they had listened to an 
unusual man making a speech quite beyond anything 
they had ever heard before. 

We do not need to criticize or analyze the speech, — 
the Plymouth oration, to use the old-fashioned and 
more sonorous words. All that concerns us is to learn, 
if we can, Webster's attitude of mind in 1820, and what 
meaning the anniversary had to him, representing as he 
did the best thought of the time. Let me quote to you 
without any apology the fine and stately sentences 
with which he closed, for they are addressed directly 
to us, and it is for us to make reply. Here is his 
peroration: — 

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion 
will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect 
to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of 
futurity; they exist only in the all-creating power of God, 
who shall stand here a hundred years hence to trace, through 
us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we 
have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the 
lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence 
with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common 
ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure 
with which they will then recount the steps of New Eng- 
land's advancement. On the morning of that day, although 
it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 219 

and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall 
be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, 
till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. 

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall 
then occupy our places some proof that we hold the blessings 
transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof 
of our attachment to the cause of good government, and 
of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and 
ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the 
understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, 
from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look 
back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed 
affections, which, running backward and warming with 
gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happi- 
ness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with 
cordial salutation ere yet they have arrived on the shore 
of being. 

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail 
you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places 
which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence 
where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own 
human duration. We bid j^ou welcome to this pleasant land 
of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies 
and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your 
accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. 
We welcome you to the blessings of good government and 
religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of 
science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to 
the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of 
kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the 
immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal 
hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth ! 

Across the century comes to us the voice which so 
moved and charmed those who heard it. The appeal is 



220 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

to us, to the Americans who are now here upon the 
earth, and to no others. What have we to say in 
answer? What message do Webster's words convey to 
us? What meaning did he find in the work of the Pil- 
grims, and how did he interpret their simple and mo- 
mentous story? How far do we go with him, where do 
our time and belief agree, and where do they contrast 
with his? What message does the Mayflower with its 
precious freight bring to us, and what help can it give 
us when, like Webster, we bequeath the next century 
to those who come after us? Let us in our own way 
try as best we may to make reply. 

That which strikes us most forcibly is that Webster 
standing here in the still lingering atmosphere of the 
eighteenth century, and with an eighteenth century 
background, speaks throughout with the voice of the 
nineteenth century. The dominant note of the whole 
address is of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth 
century spirit pervades all he said, and the great char- 
acteristic of that spirit was in varying forms the belief 
in progress, in the perfectibility of man. With all he 
says of the Pilgrims we are in full accord. We can add 
nothing to the splendor of his praise, we assuredly 
would take nothing from it. But in the very beginning 
of the sentences I have quoted he speaks of surveying 
the progress of the country as the uppermost thought. 
We must not forget that the idea of the continuous 
progress of man was then very recent, and we must 
carefully remember to draw the distinction which 
Webster failed to draw between the general recognition 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 221 

of the historic fact of progress familiar to antiquity and 
the idea of progress as a law governing humanity and 
constantly operating until the race should have van- 
ished and the earth grown cold. The fact of progress 
is one thing, the law of progress is quite another and 
very different. A volume would be needed to set forth 
the arguments and subtle distinctions of the specula- 
tive thinkers, philosophers and men of science in the 
eighteenth century who gradually developed the idea 
of progress as a law. Not until the latter part of that 
century were the conception and the law really formu- 
lated, and even then they were by no means perfected. 
The most striking point in Webster's peroration was his 
appeal to posterity, because the care for posterity was 
one of the last propositions added to the law of prog- 
ress, and yet it was the capstone of the edifice, since 
the law if it existed was inevitably altruistic, and was 
chiefly and necessarily concerned with future genera- 
tions. This in itself shows how completely the idea of 
a law of progress and a belief in the evolution of man- 
kind had either consciously or unconsciously taken pos- 
session of Webster's mind and heart. Not historic 
progress, nor material progress, nor progress in knowl- 
edge alone, but political, moral, spiritual and intellec- 
tual progress, all these and more, were included m the 
idea of human progress which did not perish at Water- 
loo, but was fated to be the ruling principle of the nine- 
teenth century, the spirit of the century just ended, 
and of which we must give an account as Webster 
demanded. We can see now the beautiful vision 



222 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

gleaming through the red mists of the French Revolu- 
tion, and behold it shming forth in the poems of 
Shelley. An exiled victim of political intolerance, he 
\yrote: — 

The world's great age begins anew, 

The golden years return. 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her winter weeds outworn; 
Heaven smiles and faiths and empires gleam 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

Shelley was influenced, no doubt, by the Greek the- 
ory of returning cycles of civilizations rising to great 
heights only to decay and fall. But none the less noble 
is the expression he here gives to the spirit which 
neither the English reaction, nor the genius of Napo- 
leon, nor the battle of Waterloo could crush or extin- 
guish. By its very nature it was able to survive defeat 
because it inevitably carried optimism with it, and it 
could not fail to appeal to masses of men who knew 
nothing of details, but who were moved by a doctrine 
which awakened hope for better things in a none too 
cheerful world. 

Webster's Plymouth oration is optimistic through- 
out. It is instinct with the spirit of the nineteenth 
century; with the conception of progress as it was 
finally perfected in the coming years. The only cloud 
that Webster sees on the horizon is slavery, which is 
described with all the power of his eloquence in the 
most famous passage of his speech. He saw plainly 
and with statesmanlike prevision the peril involved in 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 223 

slavery which threatened the future of his country, and 
he appealed to the spirit of the age against it. Even 
he could not guess that the spirit of the age would 
finally remove this curse from the land in a way which 
above all others he dreaded, and which darkly over- 
shadowed his closing years. But this was the only black 
spot in the picture, and it is not surprising that, as he 
portrayed the early days of privation, suffering and 
struggle, reviewed the growth of the colonies, depicted 
the glory of the war for independence, and drew the 
contrast with the young nation before him advancing 
over the continent with leaps and bounds, his pride as 
an American should have risen and his confidence in 
the future have become unrestrained. For thirty mem- 
orable years he was to play a large part in the history 
of his time, and we to whom he appealed in 1820 can 
look back not only upon those years, but upon many 
more which have come and gone since he died at 
Marshfield. We can judge how far his hopes have been 
fulfilled, and inquire, before we attempt to bring the 
Plymouth landing into relation with our own present 
and future, what the spirit of the age with which Web- 
ster was imbued has achieved as it has passed on across 
the hundred years which separate us from him when in 
1820 he spoke here at Plymouth. 

Every century, apparently, has a poor opinion of its 
immediate predecessor. The generations which began 
with the nineteenth century and those which came up 
in it, growing with its growth and strengthening with 
its strength, were unsparing in condemnation of all 



224 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

things pertaining to the eighteenth. To the liberal and 
the reformer the century which gave ua our independ- 
ence seemed a period of oppression and wrong, of the 
government of kings and oligarchies. It was a time 
when there were no popular rights, and when men per- 
secuted in the name of a religion in which many of the 
persecutors had themselves ceased to believe. Its heirs 
declared that it was an immoral age socially and politi- 
cally, and the altruists that it was heartless and selfish. 
Carlyle held a protracted commination service over its 
remains, although he was anything but a worshiper of 
his own time. He set the fashion for many lesser men, 
and the poor eighteenth century had no friends. The 
romantic movement swept the eighteenth century liter- 
ature into the dust heaps, and treated its architecture 
with the same contempt which the eighteenth century 
itself had shown to the Gothic buildings which they 
spoke of as the work of barbarians. Horace Walpole, 
eighteenth century to the backbone, was looked upon 
in his own day as a mere eccentric because he admired 
and imitated Gothic architecture, and wrote the first 
fantastic and wildly romantic story which obtained a 
wide celebrity. Even the furniture of our great-grand- 
fathers was broken up or hidden in garrets and kitch- 
ens, and if kept in use at all it was only with an apology 
on account of sentiment. 

Yet even before a hundred years had passed men 
began to see that as in other portions of human his- 
tory there was something to be said for this decried and 
much abused period which had given to the world, 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 225 

among others, George Washington and Benjamin 
Franklin. Was it not, after all, the century of the 
successful revolt of the American colonies which began 
the democratic movement; of the thmkers and philoso- 
phers who were gradually evolving and formulating the 
law of progress which was to rule in the approaching 
years ; of the French Revolution which set nations free 
and broke beyond repair the despotisms large and small 
which held Europe in their grasp? Was it not the era 
of Voltaire and Rousseau and the encyclopedists, who, 
whatever we may think of them individually or of their 
characters and methods, fought agamst intolerance and 
for the freedom of thought and conscience? Eighteenth 
century literature is now reassuming its proper place. 
Its art is once more prized and valued, its furniture is 
treasured ; fine examples of it are almost priceless, and, 
without sacrificing our profound admiration of the 
wondrous art of the medieval builders of cathedrals, we 
have readopted the architecture of the Louis and the 
Georges with all its classic forms as that best suited in 
taste and construction to the needs and desires of mod- 
ern life. 

Now, indeed, are the tables turned. The nineteenth 
century at this moment appears to be sadly out of 
fashion. There seems to be none so poor as to do it 
reverence. It does not even awaken the vigorous hos- 
tility which our grandfathers and fathers showed to the 
eighteenth century; it is satirized, laughe<:l at and 
derided. Its furniture, the exponent of domestic taste, 
is absolutely scorned, quite justly, no doubt, for a wider 



226 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

knowledge condemns it on general principles, and even 
sentiment cannot defend it. Its art is likewise banned 
as entirely beyond excuse, although it is not well to be 
too wholesale and to forget the Barbizon school and 
some of the romantics and pre-Raphaelites. The nine- 
teenth century literature fares little better. Its hold 
upon the people and upon the affections of the great 
mass of those who read can not be shaken, but that is 
set down by advanced persons as a proof of popular 
ignorance. The critics who dread above all things not 
to be thought modern, and who are quick to mistake 
the chirp of the cricket for the song of the birds, those 
who can not hear — 

. . . the bards sublime; 
Whose distant footsteps echo 
Through the corridors of time 

have only a sneer, or words of pity or patronage, for a 
century which began with Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
Byron and Shelley and Keats, and included in its 
course Victor Hugo, Emerson and Clough, Tennyson, 
Browning and Swinburne, Poe and Whitman. They 
are disposed to spare the last two because they are 
pleased to think one decadent and the other amor- 
phous, but there is little mercy for the rest. They 
remember very vividly the deplorable ultra Victorian 
line at the end of Enoch Arden — 

... the little port 

Had never seen a costlier funeral, 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 227 

and forget that the same great poet wrote "Ulysses" 
and "The Lotus Eaters" and "In Memoriam" and 
"Maud," which will remain in all their beauty while 
English poetry exists. And some of the poetasters of 
the day follow suit and join the cry. They despise 
form, for, if they accept the forms and standards con- 
secrated by the genius of men from the beginning of 
literature, they would not write at all, and formless- 
ness is their chief reliance, because in this way they 
can best startle, shock or amaze, and thereby draw an 
attention otherwise lacking. It is not that they pro- 
duce new forms, ever to be welcomed and studied, but 
that they reject all forms, and this it is which makes 
them such severe judges. If we turn to the realm of 
fiction it must be remembered that the nineteenth cen- 
tury was the age of Jane Austen and the Waverley 
Novels, of Dickens and Thackeray and Hawthorne, to 
mention only a few of those who stand out as most 
purely and conspicuously the representatives of their 
time. They had their defects easily to be discovered 
and pointed out, but they added to the world of 
imagination a host of men and women, the creations of 
their genius, who will ever be the undying companions 
of men, and keep their place with those whom Shake- 
speare and Cervantes gave the world to help and to 
rejoice humanity. In France it was the age of Balzac, 
and it is difficult to conceive what modern French liter- 
ature would have been in the field of fiction without 
that mighty genius, or what a deduction there would 



k 



228 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

have been made from human happiness if we had 
been deprived of Chicot and the Three Musketeers. 

I do not say this word in defense of the century in 
which a large part of the lives of many of us have been 
passed because I desire to be laudato?- teinpoiis acti, 
a role pec liiarly distasteful to me. On the contrary, 
I earnestly wish to — 

Keep the young generations in hail, 
And bequeath them no tumbled house. 

The first step for those who come after us, and who 
will, I trust, do better than we have done in our time, 
with the coming century which will be theirs, is to 
appraise with justice and discrimination the preceding 
period to which they are the heirs. To consider the 
near past without prejudice is essential to the success 
of those who live in the immediate present and are to 
be the trustees and guardians of the closely approach- 
ing future. 

I have used literature and art in their varied forms 
merely for illustration and as a plea for moderation 
when the preceding century is led out for execution. 
But there are more serious questions and also far 
deeper meanings in the great century which has so 
recently gone. We may reject at once the idols of that 
period, apparent respectability and the steadfast ignor- 
ing of anything which by any stretch of the unagina- 
tion could be called improper or coarse or indelicate. 
These limitations upon art and literature were both 
regarded as fetishes, and they often injured great work 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 229 

and laid the time open to the charge of being given to 
cant, an accusation unhappily not without foundation. 
But none of these things affect niriterially or even 
touch the deep underlying principle which dominated 
the nineteenth century and which still has a command- 
ing influence upon the minds of men, especially and 
naturally in America, The spirit of the nineteenth 
century was belief in progress. "Always toward per- 
fection is the mighty movement," said Herbert 
Spencer, who asserted that progress was a universal 
law, and the Darwinian theory was held to be the scien- 
tific demonstration of its immutability. As the cen- 
tury passed on the perpetual progress of man was con- 
fused with the material development of the time. 
Material progress has in truth gone far beyond any- 
thing which Webster predicted or even dreamed to be 
possible. Steam, electricity and the unresting labors 
of applied and mechanical science have utterly changed 
the conditions of man's life on earth. In the last fifty 
years there has been a more profound alteration in 
human environment, a greater difference created, than 
in all the centuries which elapsed between Marathon 
and Gettysburg. Wealth was torn from the earth with 
a speed which was stupefying; industry marvelously 
expanded; transport and communication well-nigh 
annihilated distance ; and fortunes were piled up which 
went far beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. The 
teachings of the Manchester school discovered the reign 
of universal peace in a trade foraiula, and the fevered 
search for quick profits and unlimited money all 



230 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

pressed the spirit of progress down toward a cash basis. 
But these were but the region clouds passing over 
the essential spirit of the age, which was the belief that 
the movement of mankind was ever upwards and on- 
wards; that men would continually rise "on stepping 
stones of their dead selves to higher things." This 
was the spirit which both in England and the United 
States turned the thoughts of men and women to the 
conditions of labor and of the poor, and started the 
movement for their improvement with the factory acts, 
— a movement of altruism which has gone on with 
gathering force from that day to this, and the benefi- 
cence of which is even yet far from exhausted. It was 
the spirit which convinced men that human slavery 
was a hideous anachronism, and which inspired the 
great conflict that in the Civil War in the United 
States preserved the Union, removed the darkest stain 
upon western civilization, and widened the area of free- 
dom. It was the spirit which brought the resurrection 
and liberation of Italy, and forced the establishment 
of constitutional government in many countries where 
the rights of the people were as yet unknown. The 
men of 1848 believed that if you could give every man 
a vote, an opportunity for education, set men free, and 
call the government a republic, all would be right with 
the world. We know now that there is no such panacea 
for human ills. We are well aware that the liberation 
of political development was only a lumited phase of 
advance toward a better world. The sciences of 
anthropology and of archeology, the study in all forms 



I 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 231 

of man as distinguished from men, the relentless 
research of history, have revealed the astonishing per- 
manence of human nature and human desires. There 
have been made painfully clear to us the racial and 
climatic, anatomical and physical differences among 
men, thus demonstrating the existence of conditions 
which make social development seem as slow, almost, 
as the operation of geologic changes in the earth's sur- 
face. We have learned in a measure that the reforms 
and advances which laws can bring to pass are so small 
that we can only with difiBculty realize that they all 
help, and that every little rivulet goes to sweU the 
mighty stream, even as the slow processes of time and 
nature wear down the primeval rocks and transform 
the outlines of continents. The theories of Buckle 
have faded even from the memories of men, and no 
one now imagines that by environment and education 
a Hottentot can be turned into an Englishman. We 
are gradually learning not to confuse knowledge with 
original thought. That we vastly surpass our ances- 
tors, near or remote, in knowledge is beyond question, 
but there is no evidence that we have better brains or 
greater unassisted intellectual power. We need take 
but one famous example from recorded history to 
prove this. No one would be bold enough to assert 
that we have ever produced men of greater intellect, or 
with a larger native strength in original thought, than 
the race w^ho gave us Democritus of Abdera, originator 
of the atomic theory; Thales, who laid the foundations 
of geometry upon which Euclid built; Plato and Aris- 



h 



232 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

totle, who have influenced the thought of western 
civilization and permeated the theology of both Chris- 
tianity and Islam. All was the result of their own 
original thought unaided by accumulated knowledge, 
unhelped by any instruments or mechanical devices, — 
all the work of pure reflection and sheer mental 
strength. These men I have mentioned are only four 
in the great group of Greeks who, especially in the 
Periclean age, carried every form of pure thought as 
well as all the arts, paintmg, sculpture, poetry and the 
drama to a point that, it may fairly be said, has not 
been surpassed in all the triumphs of the centuries since 
the Renaissance. Thus history has shown that in the 
power and native strength of the human mind there 
has been no advance, although heaped-up knowledge, 
greatest of instruments, which has gone beyond all 
imaginings, is so often wrongly mtermingled with our 
estimates of the unassisted human intellect. And yet 
all this did not touch the heart of the question or the 
faith in progress which inspired Webster. He believed 
that he found in the Pilgrims of Plymouth as he 
recounted their history a complete harmony with the 
spirit which he represented, and which was to govern 
and direct the century which lay before him. History 
has shown, indeed, that he expected too much; that 
the men of the nineteenth century thought they could 
at once effect changes which really might require ages 
for their fulfilment; that they neither completely 
understood the lessons of the past nor perceived the 
limitations which the laws of nature set to the possible 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 233 

accomplishment of their own brief lives. But the cen- 
tral point was not reached. If it became clear that 
proof of a law of progress was lacking, it seemed to 
them equally obvious that there was no evidence of 
the negative — nothing to show that the progress of 
mankind in all directions might not continue. What- 
ever criticisms might be made, whatever limitations 
discovered, deep down at the very bottom was the fact 
that they were the exponents of a noble ideal which 
was in its essence nothing less than faith in the destiny 
of man. 

So the century swept on and we are its children. 
It brought us to the point where the extended appli- 
cation of international arbitration, the conventions of 
Geneva and of The Hague, made strong the hope that 
there could be no more great wars, and seemed at least 
to assure us that if any war unhappily should come, 
then such limitations had been established and such 
agreements made that the worst horrors of war would 
be either avoided or mitigated. These hopes, these 
dreams, if you will, filled the minds of men. Then 
suddenly, without warning, there broke upon the West- 
ern World the greatest and the worst war ever known 
in a recorded history of six thousand years which had 
been filled with wars. Not only was it the greatest of 
wars, but when it came the powerful conventions of 
society, the comfortable fictions of daily existence, were 
rent and flung aside, and primitive man, even the sav- 
age of the Neanderthal period, began to show himself 
lurking behind the demure figure of nineteenth cen- 



k 



234 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

tury respectability. The difference was that the primi- 
tive instincts and passions were now equipped with all 
the methods of destruction which the latest and most 
advanced science could furnish, Germany had carried 
her purely materialistic conception of organization at 
home and dominion abroad to the highest point of per- 
fection. How near she came to victory we know only 
too well. She fell upon a world which, except for the 
British Navy and the French Army, was unprepared. 
Reckless in her strength she finally did not hesitate to 
invade and trample on the rights of the United States 
until she forced us into the field. Her preparation was 
marvelously complete, her efficiency unrivaled — and 
she failed. All the nations arrayed against her were 
largely under the materialistic influences which were 
so powerful in that phase of nineteenth century prog- 
ress, and which had forgotten the real and informing 
spirit of the time; confounded material progress with 
that of intellect and character, and made the cash basis 
loom large upon man's horizon. As Disraeli said, 
"The European talks of progress because by the aid of 
a few scientific discoveries he has established a society 
which has mistaken comfort for civilization." The 
mistake was not confined to Europe, and the confusion 
of thought which it implies both as to science and civil- 
ization was world-wide. Fortunately, none of the other 
nations which fought against Germany was wholly 
under material control. When in presence of a dire 
peril their love of independence, of liberty, of freedom 
of thought and of humanity between men and nations 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 235 

rose supreme. They preferred to suffer and die rather 
than lose these precious possessions, or sink into slavery 
and vassalage before a seeker of world dominion. So 
inspired they won, and the German scheme of world 
conquest went down in ruin. 

Now as a result we face an exhausted and almost 
prostrate world, with suggestions in Asia of world con- 
quest, while in another region a savage despotism 
which has replaced the autocracy of the Czars is threat- 
ening the destruction of all civilization. But that 
which most concerns us here are not the economic con- 
ditions, formidable and difficult as those are, or even 
the physical dangers which so darken and overcloud 
the future. It is m the realm of ideas that the most 
significant manifestations are always to be found as 
well as the solution of the problems, if there be one, 
for in the end ideas reign and thought will govern the 
world. 

The inalienable companion of the spirit of progress 
— of the law of progress, if there is one, as the nine- 
teenth century believed — is optimism, which is not a 
system of philosophy, but a state of mind. The hope 
for continuous moral and intellectual progress could 
not otherwise exist, but now, born of the great war and 
its legacies, the mental and emotional condition known 
as pessimism is rising up, looking us in the eyes and 
calling upon us to face the hard facts of history and of 
the world about us. Read the books and articles which 
are appearing daily in France and Germany and Italy 
and you will hear the note of pessimism ever waxing 



236 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

louder and more distinct. If it is said that it could 
hardly be otherwise among people who have just 
emerged from such an awful experience as theirs, one 
can only reply that this is their view, and their personal 
equation does not alter the fact of their opinion being 
as it is. 

Turn to Spain, a neutral country not ravaged by 
war. Recently I read an article by Senor Baldomero 
Argente from the Heraldo of Madrid. It begins in this 
way: ''Faith in indefinite progress is merely another 
way of expressing our limited vision. We see that the 
world has been going forward during our lifetime, and 
assume that it will continue to do so. But I am con- 
vinced that our present civilization is about to perish 
the way earlier civilizations have perished. Men may 
say that then we shaU have a new civilization better 
and grander than the previous one. But are they sure 
that the present civilization is better than the civiliza- 
tion which preceded it?" He then goes on to trace the 
earlier civilizations which have risen, flourished and 
decayed; points to the wave of gross materialism now 
flooding the world, the restlessness and extravagance 
of a civilization rotten to the core ; and concludes, after 
admitting that a new civilization may arise and fall, 
"But the time will come when the people wiU no longer 
have the strength to revolt, and the nations of Europe 
will disappear one after another, never to revive until 
after a long night of barbarism." Here is not only a 
complete denial of the nineteenth century behef, but 
a profound skepticism as to whether there has been 



1 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 237 

any real progress in the past, or that the civilization 
now tottermg is the best. Go to England. There has 
recently been published a book by Mr. J. B. Bury, 
Regius professor of modern history at Cambridge, one 
of the ablest, most learned and most eminent of Eng- 
lish historians, entitled the "Idea of Progress." At 
about the same time and with the same title appeared 
the Romanes lecture by Dean Inge, a brilliant writer 
and one of the most distinguished leaders among the 
clergy of the Church of England. Each in his own 
way comes to like conclusions. Professor Bury declares 
that the search for a law of progress has failed, and that 
the existence of such a law is wholly unproved; and 
Dr. Inge thinks that the laws of nature neither prom- 
ise progress nor forbid it, but that assured belief in it 
is a nearly outworn form of optimism. Here from 
these two eminent men is a flat negation of what the 
nineteenth century devoutly believed. In our own 
country there is a stronger hope in the popular con- 
ception of progress, and better apparent grounds for it, 
perhaps, than in any other; but as the months have 
slipped by since the war no observant man can deny 
that there is a growing doubt, a rising tide of pessi- 
mism, among those who think and who are the first 
to see and to weigh the chances of the future. This 
situation, showing so strongly this tendency of thought 
in western civilization, is a very solemn one, not to be 
disregarded or lightly brushed aside. Webster turned 
to the great landmark set up by the exiles from Eng- 
land on this spot in 1620, and as he studied and 



238 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

depicted them and their deeds he saw nothing but stim- 
ulation and encouragement, and naught but harmony 
with the spirit of progress, — the spirit of his own time 
which he so largely embodied and illustrated in after 
years. 

This was the message of the Pilgrims to him and to 
his age as they read it. What do they say to us, not 
in the dawn of a young hope everywhere for a new 
and better world, not in the heydey of the idea of 
continuous progress, but after six years of trial marked 
by an intensity and severity hitherto unknown, in an 
hour of darkness and doubt beset with perils which no 
man can measure or foresee? What meaning have the 
Pilgrims to us who have one and all been bred up in 
the nineteenth century spirit, who, carried away by 
the vast material progress of the past century, for the 
most part looking no further than the physical effects 
and thinking too little of the higher meanings, now 
find ourselves beset by doubts, surrounded by dangers, 
and with the theory of life which seemed so fixed and 
permanent trembling in the balance? What has the 
foundation of the new Plymouth, so full of the inspira- 
tion of hope to Webster and his time, to say to us as 
we look about us in this troubled and desolated world? 

As the little group of men and women who gathered 
here in 1620 stand out before us very luminous in the 
pages of history they have a stern, an austere, look, 
due perhaps in a measure to our own consciousness of 
what they believed and what they suffered and did. 
No doubt they lived and toiled and loved and married 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 239 

and were given in marriage and met the little events, 
hurrying on from day to day, much as human nature in 
all ages has commanded. But it is to be feared that 
they did not face all these daily incidents of life with 
a smile. To them life was very serious, perhaps a 
safer conception than the other extreme, which finds 
money and amusement and restless movement the 
most desirable objects of existence. But whether light- 
hearted or grave, the Pilgruns encountered the de- 
mands of life with unfailing courage, a quality always 
essential, never more so than when the clouds hang 
low and the minds of men are filled with apprehension. 
They had a very strong and active sense of public duty. 
It is possible that by their example they can on this 
point teach us something. Just at present there seems 
a great deal of concern about rights, and a tendency 
to forget the duties which rights must always bring 
with them, and without which rights become worth- 
less and can not be maintained. They were never so 
absorbed in their personal affairs as to forget those 
which concerned the public, — the public meaning to 
them the entire body of men and women who had come 
to the New World together. In this spirit, before they 
founded and established their little state, they drew up 
and signed the famous compact of the Mayflower — 
a very memorable deed, this voluntary act. They com- 
bined themselves into "a civil body politick," and 
agreed to make laws in accordance therewith, and to 
those laws and "offices" they promised "all due sub- 
mission and obedience." It was a very simple little 



240 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

statement expressed in very few words. It is quite 
true that all that is vital in the compact may be found 
in Robinson's farewell letter received at Southampton, 
or in the patent itself. The Pilgrims may not have 
originated either the words or the principles of the 
compact, although the principles embodied were few 
and the words not many. But the fact remains that 
they had thought enough about government to agree 
upon these principles and be guided by them. It was 
only an agreement, if you please, but they made it. 
The act was theirs. They gave life to the thought. 
After all deductions made, here was a Constitution of 
government which is in its essence an agreement among 
those who accept it, made by the people themselves, — 
an idea which has traveled far and wide, even to the 
ends of the earth and around the habitable globe since 
the Mayflower lay at anchor off Provincetown. Here, 
too, written in this same small paper was the proclama- 
tion of democracy, something which had quite faded 
away in Europe, and had never before been declared 
in the American hemisphere. The election of munici- 
pal officers was common enough in England, familiar 
no doubt to all the signers of the compact. What was 
of vital importance and entire novelty was that the 
signers of the compact arranged for their rulers and rep- 
resentatives in a new and unoccupied country. In an 
unknown land, with no surrounding pressure from an 
established society and an old civilization, when each 
man could easily have broken away and sought for 
license and opportunity to do his own will, especially as 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 241 

they had founded their settlement outside the territo- 
rial limits of the patent, they promised to obey the laws 
made and accepted by the community. Each and every 
man of them sacrificed a part of his own liberty that all 
might be free. "Liberty," said Georges Clemenceau, a 
great man of our own time, "liberty is the power to dis- 
cipline oneself," and this was the spirit which inspired 
the Englishmen who signed the Mayflower compact. 
No greater principle than this could have been estab- 
lished, for it is the corner stone of democracy and civili- 
zation. They knew that there could be no organized 
society unless laws made by the state were obeyed by 
all, and this mighty principle they planted definitely in 
the soil of their new country, where it has found its 
latest champion in a successor of Bradford and 
Winslow, the present Governor of Massachusetts.^ It 
was their palladium and it must be ours, also, for when 
it is reft from any state or nation the end of civilization 
in any form conceivable by us is at hand. The men of 
Plymouth thought and thought connectedly about gov- 
ernment. In their new home they seem to have had, 
and very naturally, an impulse toward a larger action 
by society as a whole, and they tried communism in 
regard to land and its development. Their native 
caution led them to limit the period of experiment, and 
when the time expired they abandoned it. You can 
find the story told in Bradford. Economically and 
socially they decided it to be a failure, an obstacle to 
advancement and in conflict with human nature, and 

' The Honorable Calvin Coolidgo. 



242 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

they let it go without a pang. They decided that the 
right of man to private property honestly obtained was 
essential to social stability and to civilization. As in 
very adverse circumstances they managed to succeed, 
there is something here worthy of consideration in 
these days filled with the noise of destructive, clamor- 
ous and ancient remedies for all human ills. 

Some twenty years later they joined the group of 
adjacent colonies and formed the New England Con- 
federation, the first effort in the direction of that Union 
of States which was to make the United States and 
create a nation continent-wide in its scope. To have 
been the first to proclaim democracy, and one of the 
first to engage in the opening attempt to unite scat- 
tered states in a nation, is an impressive record for 
the handful of men and women who landed from the 
Mayflower three hundred years ago. The underlying 
and the lasting causes which made the action of the 
Pilgrims a decisive event in history seem to me as I 
enumerate them more than ever to be not what they 
did with their ships and farms, their trade and their 
fisheries, but with their minds and with their thoughts. 

In these days of celebration, when public attention 
is strongly drawn to the PilgTims, the voice of detrac- 
tion is not stilled. There are always people, few hap- 
pily in number, but very vocal, who cannot bear to 
acknowledge greatness, and to whom genius seems an 
offense. They seek in literature and in history to bring 
those whom men reverence and celebrate down to their 
own level. They search for the flaws, the errors, the 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 243 

shortcomings, and forget that those are not what con- 
cern us. No one regards the Pilgrims as perfect. They 
themselves had no such conception. They had a very 
deep and intimate conviction of sin. But what mat- 
ters is their greatness not their littleness. They did a 
great deed; there it stands, ineffaceable and beyond 
forgetfulness. They fought a good fight; they made 
mistakes and some other things besides. They had 
strong characters and unyielding courage. They had 
deep convictions. They were close kin to Macaulay's 
Puritan. "He prostrated himself in the dust before his 
Maker ; but he set his foot upon the neck of his king." 
Whatever their failings, however simple, uneducated 
and undistinguished the mass of them may have been, 
they did a mighty work, and their work lives after 
them. The conquerors of untrodden continents, the 
founders of great nations, are not so common as unduly 
to crowd the highways of history, and when we meet 
with them it is wiser, more wholesome, to venerate 
them for what they did than to belittle them because 
they were not perfect in all the details of life demanded 
bj^ their critics in the much-abused name of the truth 
of history which the Pilgrims would have been the last 
to fear. 

Yet the greatest of all still remains behind. The 
founders of the new Plymouth came here to find free- 
dom to worship God in their own way. They sought 
to preserve their race, their allegiance to their native 
country and their language, but their religious freedom 
was the primary object to which all material purposes, 



244 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

all hope of bettering their worldly condition, were 
entirely subordinate. In 1597 some of their forerun- 
ners petitioned to be allowed to settle in Canada, and 
wished to go because there "we may not onlie worship 
God as we are in conscience persuaded by his word but 
also doe unto her majestie and our country great good 
service." So comes the voice of a quarter of a century 
before. Listen now to what Bradford says on the eve 
of the final landing, and you feel in every line the great 
aspiration of their souls: — 

May and ought not the children of these fathers rightly 
say: Our faithers were Englishmen which came over this 
great ocean, and were ready to perish in this willdemess, hut 
they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voyce, and 
looked on their adversitie, etc. Let them therefor praise 
the Lord because he is good and his mercies endure forever. 

Whatever our beliefs or disbeliefs, here is a very 
noble and beautiful spirit, a very fine and lofty courage, 
to be reverentially admired of all men, and which can 
never be out of fashion. It matters not whether we 
agree with their theology or with their forms of Chris- 
tian worship. That which counted then and has 
counted ever since was that they set the spiritual above 
the material, the possessions of the mind and heart 
above those which ministered to the body and made 
life easier and more comfortable. They builded herein 
better than they knew. The object immediately before 
them was freedom to worship God in their own way 
which had been denied to them in their native country. 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 245 

That of which they were not conscious was the corol- 
lary of their great aspiration, when once fulfilled, that 
all other men must also be free to worship God in their 
own several ways. Their powerful neighbors of 
Massachusetts Bay, coming with a like purpose, 
resisted for half a century the inevitable result with all 
the fierce energy of earnest men strong both in charac- 
ter and intellect, and failed. When the Pilgrims 
achieved their purpose through much sacrifice and suf- 
fering they opened the door to the coming of freedom 
of conscience, and freedom of conscience meant free- 
dom of thought upon everything within the mental 
range of humanity. Of all the possessions painfully 
won by the race of men throughout the centuries noth- 
ing approaches either in value or meanmg the right of 
each and every man and woman to think their own 
thoughts in their own way. Can we longer wonder that 
the coming of the Pilgrims to these shores towers ever 
higher as a decisive event in history, for the battles won 
in the fields of thought make all other battles look 
small indeed, as the procession of the centuries moves 
slowly by. 

Webster saw the greatness of the Plymouth achieve- 
ment; he saw the progress of the historic world in 
things material as well as in knowledge, and, above all, 
he saw the progress which had come in his own land 
from the labors, the deeds and the principles of the Pil- 
grims who set forth from Leyden. Apparently, as I 
have already pointed out, he did not see, or if he saw he 
did not draw, the distinction between historic progress 



246 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

in arts, science and knowledge and a law of progress 
which was to be the fine flower and the overruling influ- 
ence in the century which he represented and wherein 
he was to play so distinguished a part. To the Pilgrims 
the very idea of a law of progress was unknown. Even 
their great contemporary, Francis Bacon, who prepared 
the way for it, never accepted or formulated it. But 
they faced the world as they found it and did their 
best. The sustaining power of the nineteenth century 
which was faith in the continuous progress of mankind 
on the earth was not theirs. But whether there is a 
law of progress or not these Pilgrims of Plymouth 
stand forth exemplars of certain great principles which 
never can grow old and which can never be of better 
service than in days of doubt and trouble such as now 
beset the world. On one great point they made their 
meaning clear. They never confused moral and eco- 
nomic values; they never set material advance above 
the higher qualities of heart and mind. They never 
for a moment thought that life and its mysteries could 
be expressed in economic terms, which seems, if not 
actually avowed, to be the tendency among all classes 
to-day. They set character first. They reverenced 
learning and did homage to intellectual achievement. 
They succeeded marvelously. As we look at the world 
to-day, at what it seeks and what it apparently longs 
to be, is there not a great lesson to be learned and fol- 
lowed by us as it shines forth in the aspirations and 
deeds of these plain people whom here we celebrate? 
The wild new land, the unconquered wilderness which 



THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 247 

gave them the freedom they sought, seized with sur- 
prising quickness upon the deepest affections of their 
heart. It seems as if they said that here and not else- 
where will we live and strive — 

Until at last this love of earth reveals 
A soul beside our own, to quicken, quell, 
Irradiate, and through ruinous floods uplift. 

A noble aspiration always, and when the "ruinous 
floods" came, as they did, these Pilgrims still pressed 
on, won through, and lifted up the cause for which they 
came, in the land they had made their own. 

In all probability they still held to the belief of the 
Ancient World and of the Middle Ages that our minute 
planet was the center of the universe, to which, if I 
am not mistaken, Francis Bacon, regardless of Coper- 
nicus, Kepler and Galileo, still adhered. The earth 
was all they had, and brief life was here their portion 
as it is with us. Yet they did not live in vain. They 
strove to do their best on earth and to make it, so far 
as they could in their short existence, a better place for 
their fellow men. They were not slothful in business, 
working hard and toiling in their fields and on the 
stormy northern seas. They sought to give men free- 
dom both in body and mmd. They tried to reduce the 
sum of human misery, the suffering inseparable from 
human existence. Whatever our faith, whatever our 
beUef in progress, there can be no nobler purposes for 
man than thus to deal with the only earth he knows 
and the fragment of time awarded him for his exist- 



248 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 

ence here. As we think of them in this the only true 
way, our reverence and our admiration alike grow ever 
stronger. We turn to them in gratitude, and we com- 
mend what they did and their example to those who 
come after us. While the great republic is true in heart 
and deed to the memory of the Pilgrims of Plymouth 
it will take no detriment even from the hand of Time. 



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